The Myths of Marriage and Kids

Five years, one month, and five days ago, I met my wife.  It has been four years, three months, and 28 days since I asked her to marry me.  And it has been 4 years to this day since she and I hitched our wagons together for the long haul.

Since the day I got engaged, friends would come up to me (married friends) and offer hearty congratulations, then add, "now, when you get married, things are going to change."  I got this heads up from many people (mostly guys) who I think were earnestly trying to give me some important insights into married life that I would find valuable.

But I just didn't understand what they meant by it.  "What is going to change?  What are you talking about?" I'd ask.  They'd persist.  "Trust me, things will change.  Don't worry about it.  Just, y'know, be prepared for it."

I'd persist: "what are you talking about?  Give me something specific to work with here.  What?  Do you mean things like toilet seats and toothpaste caps?  Help me out here."  But they never clarified.  They just left it hanging out there that some sort of mysterious change would happen when we got married.

MYTH #1: "When you get married, things are going to change."  

They do not.  Or, perhaps, things don't have to change.

I often remarked to my girlfriend/fiance back in those stages of our relationship that going to Safeway or Fred Meyer felt like a date to me because I always had such fun with her no matter what we were doing.  (And stop snickering out there, people.  We actually went out on real dates all the time.)

And as I was driving around today with my beloved wife (and kids in the back seat), I thought back to those times and happily declared to my wife out of the blue "I still think going to Safeway feels like a date!"  I still do have that much fun with her no matter what we're doing.  I feel good.  I feel happy with her.

As for those mythical changes that are supposed to occur, they just never did.  She did not transform into a girl with some sort of hidden personality once we got married.  She was who she was when we were dating, engaged, and married.  Nothing has really changed, except that my appreciation of her has grown with time.  Hopefully, I'm still the guy she said "yes" to back then.  Wiser, more experienced, but the same guy.

I think it has been very helpful in our relationship that when we started dating, she sort knew who she was, and I sorta knew who I was.  We more or less had our own selves figured out.  So, when we started dating, I, for example, didn't have a moving target in her to figure out.  She was who she was, she knew herself, and that made it easy for me to figure her out.  In fact, I really don't think I had to figure her out.  Who she was, was (and is) obvious.  I hope and think the same can be said for me.

So, there's no moving target, no shifting fault lines.  No mysterious changes once it's "too late to back out."

MYTH #2: "You'll have arguments.  Don't worry about it, every couple has them."

This one has always bothered me.  Long before I got married, even long before I was remotely interested in getting married, I thought marriage shouldn't be that way.  But it has been the universal refrain from anyone and everyone I heard comment on the subject - whether or not I was involved in the conversation.  So universal, in fact, that I just assumed that it must be my willful ignorance that prevented me from accepting the universal truth that all couples argue.

But I continued to chaffe at that apparent truth.

Then I heard a leader in my church give a speech on the hazards of anger.  He talked about marriage and divorce, and identified divorce as the bitter fruit of anger.  He then added that he had been married 67 years to his wife (who had passed away a few years prior to the speech), and he had never had a quarrel with her.

When I heard that, I thought "Ah hah!  I knew it could be done."

Now call me inexperienced at only 4 years of marriage.  Fair enough.  But I believe the trend my wife and I have started is more than just luck.  I believe it to be a pattern, the rule, and not the exception.  We have not had a quarrel yet.  Either I've held my tongue, or she has.  But neither of us have let the other have it, nor do I think either of us has wanted to.

When she's passionate about something, I tend not to be.  When I'm passionate about something, she's generally not that interested.  There have only been a few occasions I can think of that we've had differing opinions on a matter, and we both felt strongly about it.  What did we do?  We did nothing.  We sat on it.  We let things play out and decidedly chose not to force a decision.  And things have always worked themselves out.

I recall being a best man at a buddy's wedding, many years before I got married.  When the time came to offer the toast, a small wave of panic came over me because I hadn't given it any thought.  But there I was, glass in hand, and blurted out: "look after your spouse's wants and needs before your own, and things will work out fine."  I couldn't believe that came out of my mouth, because I had never considered those thoughts before.  But it stuck with me ever since.  And it is how, I think, my wife and I have been able to go 4 years without arguing.

MYTH #3: Once you have kids, you no longer have a life.

I don't put quotes around that one because no one has explicitly said that.  No one (with kids) will actually say that kids crush any sense of liberty, freedom, and fun in your life.  But I've heard it implied many times over.  With facial expressions, tones of voice, knowing looks, and even words that come close.

Now, the flip side of that perspective is that you absolutely can have a life with kids by ignoring the fact that you have kids.  Dump them on your spouse and go hang out with the guys all the time.  I don't believe in that one either.

As with most things in life, the happy place I've found is in the middle.  I like to camp, cycle, hike, and fiddle with my yard, house, and other minor home improvement projects.  So, I let my kids join me.  Initially, our bike rides are very short.  The camping is in the tent set up in the living room, then the back yard, and this summer, we'll do some car camping, with perhaps a hike in camp out as well.  We ease them into it.  My boy has limited hose privileges now, but they're expanding as we go.

I like to go to movies too.  In fact, my wife an I loved going to the movies.  But, we don't do that yet.  We think its too much for a toddler or infant.  We put the kids to sleep and rent a Red Box.  That's the compromise for now.  But, we can still do what we want (have a life, enjoy a little freedom, whatever) in smaller doses.  And as time goes on, in even greater doses.

MYTH #4: "Kids are germ factories, and will get you sick."

Actually, that one is true.

I was invincible before kids.  Only periodically got the sniffles.  Now I get a new bug every 3-4 weeks. It's brutal.

In sum, happy wife, happy life.  I take care of her, and she takes better care of me.  She rocks, and I couldn't be happier with her riding shotgun with me through life and parenthood.

The Gun Debate

Alright, the dust has settled a little. Now, let’s chat with rational heads and hearts about this issue. When it comes to gun control, this is always the first thing that comes to my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbHH5xZcVvQ.

What bothers me about this debate/argument (I dare not say “discussion”, because not a whole lot of that seems to be happening), is that it is frequently cast in absolutes. “Guns are the problem! Take them away!” Or, “More guns makes for a safer society! It’s Hollywood’s fault!” Et cetera, et cetera.

As with most things in life (and many rational folks know this), I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. So, let’s toss out the varying elements to this discussion, and pick them apart one at a time:

The Constitution: for many, this is where this debate begins and ends. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Now, I’m not a Supreme Court scholar, nor am I one who follows closely the various Court decisions and interpretations of what that means. But I recall that the Courts have upheld a few things: that militia means average citizens, not just the national guard, and that people have the right to keep arms (e.g. Washington, DC gun ban being over turned). Again, not being one who follows closely court cases on the 2nd Amendment, I wonder if it has specifically addressed the “bear arms” part. I would think that is referring to the ability to carry concealed…but I’m not sure on that.

However, as I observe, this right is not an unlimited right. There are limitations to it, as with other Constitutional rights (e.g. First Amendment, you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater, etc.). With guns, you’re not allowed to keep or bear arms if you’re a convicted felon or if your mental stability is determined to be lacking. So there are limitations on this right, and I think they are reasonable. Indeed, I am grateful for those two limitations in particular.

The question in this variable (the Constitutional right to bear arms) is how many limitations are too many limitations? When do we cross the Constitutional line? Purists, I imagine, will say any infringement (including the two limitations noted above) crosses the line. Others, I would imagine, would want more.

My opinion? I think the limitations in place are reasonable. As a citizen, I don’t want people who have either displayed gross irresponsibility (felons) or an inability to be responsible (mental stability) to have access to firearms. (Nor do I want them, parenthetically, to have access to cross bows, large quantities of fertilizer and ammonia, etc., but we’re talking about guns, here, and we’ll just leave that alone for now). Should there be more categories of folks or crimes or levels of mental instability included in the list of limitations? Perhaps. Let’s hear them in the public square, and discuss them.

Guns: Is the accessibility of guns a problem? Are there too many guns or too many types of guns out there, and does this ease of accessibility create a public safety hazard? It depends, I think.

Responsible gun owners, I think, secure their guns. They don’t let anyone else get a hold of them, but themselves. They either have them in a safe, on their person, or stowed away somewhere relatively safe and secure. Then what do we do with those folks who aren’t responsible gun owners, who leave their guns lying around for kids or dirtbags to get their hands on? I think they are just as responsible as the folks who use the guns illegally. Accomplices, if you will. Throw them in jail for the length of time the person who actually pulled the trigger. Or at least a substantial part of that prison term. Details can be worked out, but the punishment for being an irresponsible gun owner (and that irresponsibility leading to a gun crime) should be severe.

Which leads me to another subset of this bullet (pardon the pun): If someone wants to kill people and doesn’t have a gun, they’ll find another way of doing it. That’s the rhetorical point many gun supporters make. And there is some validity to it. But the thing that separates guns from other ways of killing is that guns are: a) easy to use (in general); and b) can harm a lot of people in a short amount of time. Everyone knows how to use a gun. Four year-olds know how to use guns. Aim and pull (yes, I know, many guns have safety mechanisms, etc., but most people can figure those out). A really motivated killer can go on-line and figure out how to make a bomb, but then they’ve gotta gather the bomb making ingredients from a variety of sources, figure out a triggering method, sneak into the building plant the bomb, and then detonate it while off-site. All of that times time, effort, some level of intelligence, a lot of luck in not getting caught in the process, etc. With a gun, you don’t have to make it, you don’t have to sneak around ingredients, plant it, arm it, etc. You just get the gun, and walk into the nearest office building, school yard, or quicky mart, and you’re there.

The ease of use and efficiency of use is what makes guns so distinct and potentially dangerous, and makes moot (in my opinion) the rhetorical argument I hear so often that a killer will find another way.

Types of guns: do we need “military-style assault weapons” (whatever that means)? Do we need Ferraris (for the record, I think we need Ferraris)? Do we need suits of armor, do we really any host of things people like to collect that could potentially be used to harm someone else? More than those things, do we really need porn on the computers at the library? Guns destroy the body, but porn rots the soul. But the First Amendment protects porn, and the Second Amendment protects guns.

As a sidebar, this brings me back to a quote that I think cannot be read too often in the American experience: "Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the councils of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."

In other words, we keep the rights so long as we are responsible with them.

Mental Health: Do we really need to talk about this one? Can everyone agree there are some folks out there who simply don’t have the mental capacity to understand what they are doing? What it really means to point a gun at another human being and pull the trigger? The tragedy associated with all of that? I think we can.

So how do we handle folks who are dangerous to themselves and to others? Do we make it easy to take away their freedoms and “incarcerate” them in a mental treatment facility? How do we manage that issue (I ask in exasperation)? I am inclined to be slow to take freedoms away from any innocent (innocent, in that they don’t have the capacity to make informed decisions for themselves) soul. I tend to believe people are responsible for the portion of intelligence given them (although, willful ignorance is no excuse). Call it belief in the parable of the talents, or call it by some other philosophical name. I just have a hard time punishing someone with the loss of their freedoms if they just aren’t accountable for their actions.

On the other hand, among our government’s first responsibilities are to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility (I translate that to meaning peace and safety). In order to accomplish that, it is hard to justify allowing the proverbial ticking time bombs to walk the streets until they explode. Striking the right balance on mental health is a tough one for me.

But there is a subset to this topic that leads me to my next topic….

Popular Culture (a.k.a. Hollywood / video game industry): Enter the chicken and the egg. The purveyors of violent material into our culture claim that they are only providing the public what they are asking for. It’s hard to deny that claim since we seem to eat it up to the tune of billions of dollars every year. On the other hand, there are quite a few consumers who reject that material, and abhor the reality that they can’t turn on their television at anytime of the day and realistically expect to find genuinely G-rated material for themselves or their kids to watch.

When I hear the back and forth between the entertainment industry and various groups (gun groups among them) who blame the entertainment industry, three statements come to mind:

• Lincoln referenced a New Testament scripture in his second inaugural address: "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." I agree with this.
• The inimitable Peggy Noonan recently wrote: "Violence is different, I said, because there are unstable people among us, and they are less defended against dark cultural messages. The borders of the minds of the unstable are more porous. They let the darkness in. You can go to a horror movie and be entertained or amused: “This is scary, I love getting scared, and I love it because I know it isn’t real.” But the unstable are not entertained by darkness. They let it in. They are inspired by it. Sometimes they start to live in the movie in their heads. “I am the Joker,” the shooter is reported to have told the Aurora police."
• Said Director Ang Lee: “I think we should use restraint. You should have the freedom to create whatever is in your mind. Of course, you pay the price for that.”
• “If you don’t want to watch it, turn it off.” To those who say this, I say you are correct in most cases. Just like Ms. Noonan’s comments about scary movies are okay for most people. But there are plenty of folks out there for whom it is not as easy as turning it off. And with those people in mind, we should consider Mr. Lee’s comments about paying the price.

So this is a multi-headed beast. The laws of our land, the guns in our hands, the health of our minds and souls, and the world around us who dangle violence out in front of us like it is an tantalizing piece food. If we attack one element without addressing the others, I’m convinced we’ll fail.

Ultimately, I think we can address all of them balancing justice with mercy and still fall short if we don’t address the spiritual deficiencies of our own hearts. (And while there are many paths to spiritual stability – religion among them – any number of spiritual paths can help on this one.) As we fail to practice the golden rule (Matthew 7:12 "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.") we erode our own abilities to act responsibly. And for those who are so mentally ill that they never were able to act responsibly, we fail them too, as we are not equipped to address their needs per the golden rule.