If you want to have kids and want a partner that is into that, that's fine. However, being self-centered and wanting to be a parent aren't mutually exclusive, as I have met adults whose parents were/are extremely self-centered and that factored in heavily into the abusive situations those adults lived in when they were children.
> And I am very sad to see that all other families are crumbling.
I'm not really sure what you are talking about, families have always had issues with abuse, divorce, etc., that is nothing new (even if people may have hidden those things more often in the past, but that really depends on when and where you grew up).
All this chart shows in an increase in the number of single mother households over time, particularly starting in the 1960s/1970s, in the United States. Whether or not you see that as sad depends on what you know of the living conditions women experienced in the time before that, conditions which gave rise the 2nd wave feminist movements. Suffice it to say the same underlying social and gender disparities existed prior to the increased occurrence of divorce and US society was not more stable or better off before that increase.
As far as I am aware, children living with both parents do much better in life in a variety of metrics (income, criminality, academics, child poverty, and etc.). While easier divorce may have led to an increase in equality for women, it has also had an immense negative impact on children.
Trade-offs exist, whether or not we choose to ignore them for ideological reasons. You are free to believe that the modern world is better off, despite the costs. But you should be aware of the costs.
> As far as I am aware, children living with both parents do much better in life in a variety of metrics (income, criminality, academics, child poverty, and etc.). While easier divorce may have led to an increase in equality for women, it has also had an immense negative impact on children.
This isn't the result of divorce being more accessible, this is the result of how difficult it is to be a single parent and how little support you have on a single income while providing all primary care for your kids. The fix for that is to address systemic issues regarding class, gender discrimination, reduced access to family planning, health care access. Even by the chart you provided, single father households have not grown dramatically since the 1960s/1970s since women end up being primary care given for children in a majority of cases, whether by desire or by cultural default.
I agree with you 100% about awareness of cost, but easier access to divorce and a lessening of the cultural expectation that women be married has simply made existing problems more apparent to society at large, which is a good thing in terms of identifying where we need to fix social inequalities.
My mother's father was alcoholic, my father was alcoholic. These issues had nothing to do with the availability of divorce. I highly doubt it would have assisted my mother or I if my grandmother and my mother were not allowed to divorce.
It is apples and oranges to compare today's society with the societies of past, and not so easy to arrive at solid conclusions regarding the impacts and costs of changes in social values.
I do not believe that was your point at all. Your post suggested quite the opposite. To me it read as though you think people are ignoring the impact easy divorce has on children because of ideological reasons.
The same could be said of people who think marriage means a happy and stable home life.
I'm speaking of averages. On average, a two parent home is much better for children. Of course there are exceptions. Pointing out exceptions to robust statistical data is the most common fallacious statistical argument.
Statistical data don't tell why. Divorce could be the effect of the real problem (alcoholism or mental disorder) and staying married could actually have made things worse.
The thing is, once you got to decide, statistics say nothing useful, it's your situation or, if you prefer, your exception, your anecdote, what really matters.
I see a chart that shows that single parents and their children aren't dying of poverty as much as they used to. I suppose you could say that this is a net negative for the children, since they might be unhappy rather than dead, but that's a value judgement of your choosing.
Your chart shows just that there are more single mothers. What the chart fails to indicate is that 40% of babies are born to unmarried couples these days, many of whom are a happy couple but just not married. It is a reflection of changing attitudes about marriage, and a failure of data collection. There has always been families of all sorts - single moms, blended families, happy and unhappy marriages, etc. (source: wife who is a sociology professor).
I am form Brazil, no-fault divorce was only allowed in the 70s (in comparison to US for example), and divorce rates rose very quickly.
Three years ago the divorce laws were made even more lax, and divorce rate tripled immediately (ie: one year after the law, the amount of divorce year-to-year was 3 times).
Most of my friends have divorced parents, I knew few people that actually have married parents, and frequently when people meet my family they say they are envious.
Also the marriage rates are plummeting too (and although the co-habitation rates are rising, it is not rising fast enough to compensate).
Is this really a bad thing? Is it better that people stay in marriages they do not want to be a part of rather than be free to separate? Staying in a failed marriage is not necessarily better for kids and may in fact be worse than getting a divorce.
Marriage rates are falling in some countries and places, but that really depends more on the specifics of where you are. In the US, there are a variety of reasons why people are getting married at slower rates these days, but it doesn't really matter how often people get married anyway.
> Also the marriage rates are plummeting too (and although the co-habitation rates are rising, it is not rising fast enough to compensate).
If you have kids, the commitments you've made are not just to your spouse/SO/whatever, but also to your kids. Those commitments are long-term and failing to keep those commitments is very damaging to kids. I think if more people took those commitments seriously, they would find ways to solve problems. As it is, why bother trying when it's easier to just say "screw it" and separate.
There are some marriages that should end. There are men and women both who have no business being attached to another human being. But I think more marriages end than need to, and it's a net-negative to everybody involved (which means all of society). Learning how to live happily with another person (and it is difficult, no questions; I'm going on 20 years and it stays just as hard every year) is one of the most satisfying things you can do and teaches you many important lessons that positively impact one's life in areas outside of the home.
Yes, often people are too quick to give up on their marriage if there are not legal complications on the way but, when that happens, it is more of a social or should I say cultural problem. IMO it's always wrong to apply pressure through law for those sort of problems.
Even if by using increased legal restrictions there appeared to be a net-positive in that specific context, I feel that there would be a net-negative in a larger scale, as it would violate individual freedom.
Of course, law should provide for things like both parents having to contribute to kids expenses, or both parents being able to spend some time with their kids, but not go beyond that and try to make it hard for them go separate ways when they want to -that's overstepping.
Besides that, I would much rather grow up in a family in which my parents decided to go different ways rather than in a family where my parents would be together but not seem happy with each other.
When you make a commitment to another person, you may get rough patches but eventually if you work through them then your relationship will mostly only get stronger.
Of course, this doesn't count when it comes to abusive relationships.
I know lots of self-centered people that are parents.
What I mean is that it is hard to find women that actually WANT to live a life of sacrifice, living for the family, instead of living to themselves.
I've met some women that when I ask if they want to be mother they say:
"Oh, sure!"
And then I ask:
"So, when you have your 4 months old kid, you will stay at home to take care of it if your husband is rich enough for that?"
And then most of them reply:
"Hell no, the kid can stay in the creche, or watching TV with the babysitter, I must work."
Funnily, I have a friend that insists that she will even have a kid using sperm bank, and she will take care of that kid alone, yet she hates her mother because she feels her mother did not gave attention enough to her (her mother is a divorced lawyer, and the girl was cared by the house cleaning lady that lived in the house, when she has problems she still talk to that lady instead of her mother).
Will you stay home with your 4 month old if your wife is rich enough?
By your definition, if you answer no, then you are "self-centered", to the point where you wouldn't consider yourself a good partner to have children with.
On the other hand if you answer yes, then you have solved your problem. Doesn't matter how "self-centered" your spouse is, you will take care of the kids either way.
So, assuming a rich wife (or rather a wife with high income) is easier to find than one that's willing to give up her career, if you want the greatest chance that your children will have a full time caregiver that's one of their parents, you should look for a rich "self-centered" woman, not a selfless one :)
My wife won't watch the kid or work (productively). She does online tutoring "work" for effectively ~$3/hour about 5 hours a day while daycare costs ~$7/hour.
I can think of very few choices more important in life than who you marry and bear offspring with. Sadly in my case, none of her habits became visible until well after we had married and had a child.
I'd echo the other people's suggestions here to go for family therapy. If the resentment is not yet too strong between the two of you, you can reach an agreement.
Not only that but if you get divorced, you are fucked alimony and child support wise. Or if you had a prenup, at least child support wise.
So it is in your best interest emotionally and financially to not let this sit for too much longer. Go to the family therapist yourself first to get a few ideas on where to go from there.
If you haven't already, seek couples counseling/therapy asap, as resent about parenting or living situations are big issues that hard to tackle without some outside perspective.
There are boatloads of research that shows that children younger than 1 year really need contact with the mother ( even if adoptive ), breastfeeding, and simple body contact ( among other things ) are part of various processes, mostly related to hormones.
It is great selfishness to hurt a child by not allowing it intense and almost constant contact with the mother ( not the father )
Working is not fun, I don't work for power, fun, or greed, but because I need to, I have to feed the family while the mother is busy being mother.
We have no technology yet that allows for women to not be mothers.
Body contact is indeed important, but you are mistaken that it must always be with the mother. Parents can share every childraising activity except breastfeeding -- and it's not necessary that children be strictly breastfed.
It seems you have grown up believing that family is about sacrifice. I think this is sad. Having a family takes work, certainly, but it should be a joy, not a burden.
I cry foul. Massive numbers of mothers can't breast feed. And frankly, if its hard, don't bother. Give the child formula, be a happier person and the child will be better off for that alone. The pressure to breast feed is huge and considering that there are far bigger problems - why bother?
My wife couldn't breast feed for long and felt terrible for it and was under pressure from almost all corners to carry on. But once she stopped the child, her and me were happier. Do what suits without fear.
> What I mean is that it is hard to find women that actually WANT to live a life of sacrifice, living for the family, instead of living to themselves.
Well, in most of the western world women had no choice in the past but to take on those roles, regardless if they wanted to or not. That we see women rejecting this kind of role because they have more choices is a good thing. I'm sure there's plenty of folks out there that still want that lifestyle, but there should be no default assumption of that being the suitable gender role for women.
> "Hell no, the kid can stay in the creche, or watching TV with the babysitter, I must work."
If someone wants to do this and has the means to do so, is there a problem? Sure it might not match what you want with your life, but that just means that person isn't the parental partner for you.
In terms of working while raising children, if you have the financial resources to make up for having one or both parents working then there is not much of an issue. A lot of folks don't have such resources, of course, and work out of necessity.
As for why folks have kids, the reasons are varied, but a significant percentage of those are not planned, they are either unwanted or mistimed. Jessica Valenti had a great piece in the Atlantic about this that was posted here a few weeks back - http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/not-wantin...
There are a lot of women out there who greatly desire to be a stay at home mom and in this way, help raise a family. They are out there, you just have to look :) I waited and found a lady who greatly desired this kind of lifestyle and it is working out fabulously for us.
> And I am very sad to see that all other families are crumbling.
I'm not really sure what you are talking about, families have always had issues with abuse, divorce, etc., that is nothing new (even if people may have hidden those things more often in the past, but that really depends on when and where you grew up).