Posted by Chairm
[See Update at bottom of blogpost]
The unity of motherhood and fatherhood is advantageous for the parents, their children, our society today and the future generations who will inherit what we pass on to them. Our society's special status for marriage derives from the significance of 1) sex integration combined with 2) the provision for responsible procreation.
When we ask whether children of divorce are better off traveling between two worlds or losing one parent altogether, we enter the realm of rating and comparing childhood pain -- a sad exercise that yields no sense of victory. Unfortunately, when it comes to the arrangement of postdivorce family life there are no easy answers.
What is clear is that most people recognize the deep loss children feel when growing up without a father or mother.
Instead of trying to choose among the various, deeply flawed scenarios, we need to focus more energy on the larger question: How can fewer children grow up in divorced families and more children grow up in one secure home?
[...]
For years the most-asked question about children of divorce was this: Should unhappily married parents get divorced or stay put for the sake of the children? This is no longer the right question. For one thing, a marriage that is unhappy now might not be unhappy a few years later. For another, divorce is not a sure remedy for unhappiness.
[...]
If our society is to find a balance, one that recognizes the need for divorce while supporting healthy marriages, we need to make sweeping changes to our thinking about marriage. Currently many people across the country are involved in a growing grassroots "marriage movement" to do just that.
-- Elizabeth Marquardt, "Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce," published 2006.
[UPDATE]
Podcast: Elizabeth Marquardt on Matt Cooper's TodayFM, Ireland’s popular national radio show. Jan 31, 2008 (mp3 file, 7 mb).
Is Marquardt blogging anywhere these days?
ReplyDeletePeter, I don't think so. Elizabeth is still included in the list of scholars and speakers at the Center for Marriage and Families under the auspices of the Institute for American Values.
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed when Family Scholars dropped their blog. It felt as though they were disengaging from the debate.
ReplyDeleteI think they didn't like being a forum for other people's better ideas that made their own seem weak and impotent and irrelevant. Speaking of which, what is the point of this post? Are you suggesting we should outlaw divorce? Stop sending fathers with children to war? Force unwed parents to marry and stay together? The funny thing is, the only thing that is worth saying, you don't say - you don't even say that we should reinforce and affirm in law the idea that people that have children together should marry first, and that marriage is the license to conceive children together, so that children are conceived by committed couples who will be more likely to stay together than uncommitted couples or couples that don't even know each other, like sperm donors.
ReplyDeleteI really wish someone on this blog would start making suggestions for what they think needs to be done, what the various strategies are for stopping same-sex marriage and restoring responsible procreation. I don't think merely repeating the same platitudes over and over and commenting on the decline of the culture is working. Does anyone have a plan of action, or any goals they are willing to try to achieve?
I always thought Sara Butler Nardo was passionate about marriage. Is she really so busy that she can't be bothered to write any more about the subject?
ReplyDeleteThis is the moment. If you are not writing about marriage now, it's going to be hard to take you seriously later.
Sara Butler Nardo still writes on marriage (I don’t know about blog- perhaps she doesn’t have the time or inclination)
ReplyDeleteWhy - why don’t you write her and ask?
Have any links to anything she's written after leaving Family Scholars (Sept 2006)? All I could find was that she is part of the New Thrift initiative.
ReplyDelete