The Chicken and the Egg

Los Angeles, California

I had dinner this week with one of my fristers, known here as LOL. It was my first meal in sixteen days in company, so I looked forward to it fervently, though it was at the end of my work week and I was mightily tired.

During the course of the dinner we engaged in a discussion about which was more important in a family: the marriage or the children. My friend insisted that the marriage was secondary, having come from a family where this was clearly established. My family, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. My parents relationship was the foundation of the family, and I knew that from the beginning of family consciousness. As a child, and as an adolescent, I was always aware of, and at times childlishly peeved at, this fact. But as I grew to adulthood, and entered into my own marriage, the relationship that I had with this still-in-love couple that I had witnessed while growing up as a unified front, was gratifying. My parents still held hands, they still were interested in each other, but they continued to be interested in me -- and supported my husband and me, in the way that parents should, as we launched our marriage.

I came home from the dinner in a disturbed quandary, even wondering if my misconception could have been a causal effect in the failure of my own marriage. Perhaps this concept that marriage should be primary had been too hard, too inflexible, for my partner. I was completely unambivilent in my feeling about marriage when I entered into it. It wasn't just my parents; there was also Leonard and Edna. My uncle Leonard was my mother's brother, and the childfree marriage he and my Aunt Edna shared was, in every way, enviable. They were partners, friends, helpmates, travel companions -- everything that I wanted in marriage and looked for in a partner.

Over the days after our dinner I began to research this concept starting with the simple google: Which is more important, marriage or children? I fully expected it to come back supporting the children, but from Psychology Today to The British Journal of Medicine, with a myriad of articles in between, it was unequivocally stated that the marriage should be key. In fact, most articles cited research that children were actually healthier in families where it is understood that the marriage comes first. Further, children in those families are more successful in their own marriages and families. And the ever-increasing divorce rate was surmised to be a result of this shift away from what is taught and supported, as found in the book of Genesis and throughout the old testament, by most major religions and civilizations.

But I came from a family like that, and my marriage had failed. I didn't have to look beyond my husband's family to realize the obvious: he had not come from a family like that. In fact, in his large family neither the marriage nor the children came first. It was more or less everyone fending for themselves. And clearly, this was not a recipe for raising children who would become healthy adults.

Several of the articles touched on the shift in childrearing after the baby boomer generation became parents. And a shift it was. In recent decades everything has become child-oriented, and family life is centered around their activities. While my sister and I were involved in both school and extra-curricular activities: Girl Scouts; Job's Daughters; figure skating and piano lessons and Ponytail League Softball; when my father took summer vacation time away from his job as an aerospace engineer, my mother packed us into the back seat or onto a flight and those activites were left behind while we traveled together as a family. My parents deserved a vacation, and they usually took us along. We explored Hopi burial grounds because my father was interested in cultural anthropology. We wandered around Civil War battlefields after Mom read A Stillness at Appomattox.

During the rest of the year, we were dropped at my grandparents' home every Friday night while my parents went out to dinner. And they got away for a weekend on their own at least two or three times a year. Once my sister was in her late teens, they left us alone at home together. We felt quite independent, deciding what we wanted to eat for dinner, or choosing a restaurant where we would go out to eat. Sometimes we went to the theater or a movie, just the two of us. It was an important part of our growing separation and independence.

I wonder if during this shift, when children became all-important and parents drove around with their Student of the Month stickers, we didn't cultivate the portion of the population who pass on the shoulder of the freeway because they feel entitled not to creep along in traffic with the rest of us. After all, they're special! And, did this being the perpetual center of attention not lead to the current trend of loud talkers who seem to feel that we all want to hear everything they have to say -- whether during their cell phone conversations in line at the bank or sitting behind us at the movies or a sporting event? Yes, older people do this too, but it does suspiciously seem to be predominantly those of a certain generation. The examples go on and on. We were not raised to do these things. We were taught that children were to be seen, but not heard. As my dad, and probably Dr. Spock said: the tail doesn't wag the dog. Or to paraphrase Garrison Keillor, we were children and we weren't important, and weren't going to be important until we grew up and became adults. And, after all, that is the way our parents were raised; those who grew up to become what is purported to be the greatest generation, fighting pervasive evil in World War II.

So, in the days after that dinner, I came solidly back around to my way of thinking. I was lucky to have parents who modeled what today seems so difficult: a strong, united, and loving marriage which was primary in our family. And, I don't think I was wrong to want this. I just wasn't mature or wise enough to know that in order for any relationship to be important, you need to both feel the same about the value of that relationship.

My mom was not a great mother. She probably should not have had children. And most likely the success of my parents' marriage wasn't achieved through their fifty-fifty endeavor. But, I was fortunate to see my parents toast each other during the party at my home celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. I will never have that for myself. But I am so grateful that I was a part of their life and marriage, and that I grew to adulthood with a clear understanding of the gift and importance of it. They had it right. And now I'm sure of that.