So, last Thursday, I wrote a post commenting on the recent poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News. The poll showed that only 30% of Millennials and Gen Zers believe having children is important. That means 70% don’t which is a startling number. In my post, I gave my opinion on why I think this is so. Mostly, I believe that it is a product of the devaluation of life through abortion and the growing acceptance of euthanasia. I, also, believe that we’ve lost the purpose of marriage. To be fair, many Millennials and Gen Zers are legitimately worried about the planet and its resources and feel adding more children is harmful. Others have legitimate reasons for not having children in their marriage at the present time because of job situations and financial concerns. All of which I get and understand.
However, I have a sneaking suspicion that a big reason for these percentages is selfish motivations. I’ve dealt with the “child-free” crowd before and let’s just say that selfLESSness isn’t their strong suit. This isn’t my opinion. They will happily tell you that they have zero
For this blog, I am going to take their attempted definitions of marriage and show why they don’t work.
Ashley: “The purpose of
My Response: This “purpose” is bereft of any meaning. It certainly doesn’t answer the question. If a child asked you what the purpose of marriage was and you gave this response, they’d leave more confused than when they started.
Nikki: “I have only one person who I have chosen to live with and support for our lives.”
My Response: All this is, is a description of life circumstances. It doesn’t define what marriage is or give its purpose. You could have two friends that live together and support each other for life, never getting married. You could choose to live with a parent for the rest of your life and support them. A special needs child often lives with their parents for the rest of their lives.
Danielle: Marriage’s purpose is to tie two CONSENTING ADULTS into a union, which could be emotional, financial or political in nature depending on circumstances.
My Response: A business meager could tie two consenting adults into a financial relationship, too. Definitions that are so general in nature and could describe many different things are not good definitions.
Melissa: Marriage is a partnership between two people.
My response: You can have partnerships with co-workers, business owners, friends, contractors, and many other types of relationships. This, in no way, shows how marriage is unique from other relationships.
Melissa: Marriage itself is a civil contract wherein you pledge to share half of everything. That’s all it is.
My Response: If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was describing a business partnership.
One lady gave me the Oxford Dictionary definition which is: The legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship.
(As a side note: I went and looked in my actual dictionary from 1996 and the definition was: The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. It’s not completely satisfying but at least it isn’t completely vague and ambiguous.)
My Response: The recent definition is the vaguest definition I can ever imagine. If I was an alien and came to earth and asked what marriage was and this definition was given to me, I’d really have no clue as to what it truly meant. This is what happens when marriage gets watered-down into meaning anything people want it to mean. It loses purpose and explanation. If any relationship can be a marriage because you say so, then no relationship is a marriage. Notice how it says “two people.” It doesn’t even say “adults.” When I pressed the lady who offered this definition on if she would be okay with an adult marrying a child, she decided to make an adjustment to the dictionary definition.
“I’d add that it should say “two consenting adults.”
Yeah, but it doesn’t and now the definition that she offered up doesn’t agree with what she wants it to say. This definition from the dictionary is about as explanatory as saying an apple is a fruit that comes from a tree. It begs the question: Which fruit from which tree? If I pick a fruit from a tree how do I know it’s an apple or not?
I had a few others tell me that marriage is whatever a couple defines it to be, but that’s nonsensical. Words have meanings. We can’t go around just defining things however we want. That causes chaos and makes our language meaningless.
What surprised me most was that nobody added in the sexual aspect to the definition. As Catholics, we are accused all the time of being anti-sex, yet the Catechism explicitly talks about the sexual union between the married couple and the importance of it.
Finally, someone asked me for my definition and here is my answer paraphrased from the Catechism:
Marriage is a covenant in which a man and woman freely and fully bind themselves for life for the building up of the family. It is a sexual, lifelong commitment that should be faithful and a total gift of self. Marriage not only binds the married couple but brings together two families and builds foundations for society to be built off of. The couple is ordered toward the procreation of children and is …
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]]>So, last Thursday, I wrote a post commenting on the recent poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News. The poll showed that only 30% of Millennials and Gen Zers believe having children is important. That means 70% don’t which is a startling number. In my post, I gave my opinion on why I think this is so. Mostly, I believe that it is a product of the devaluation of life through abortion and the growing acceptance of euthanasia. I, also, believe that we’ve lost the purpose of marriage. To be fair, many Millennials and Gen Zers are legitimately worried about the planet and its resources and feel adding more children is harmful. Others have legitimate reasons for not having children in their marriage at the present time because of job situations and financial concerns. All of which I get and understand.
However, I have a sneaking suspicion that a big reason for these percentages is selfish motivations. I’ve dealt with the “child-free” crowd before and let’s just say that selfLESSness isn’t their strong suit. This isn’t my opinion. They will happily tell you that they have zero
For this blog, I am going to take their attempted definitions of marriage and show why they don’t work.
Ashley: “The purpose of
My Response: This “purpose” is bereft of any meaning. It certainly doesn’t answer the question. If a child asked you what the purpose of marriage was and you gave this response, they’d leave more confused than when they started.
Nikki: “I have only one person who I have chosen to live with and support for our lives.”
My Response: All this is, is a description of life circumstances. It doesn’t define what marriage is or give its purpose. You could have two friends that live together and support each other for life, never getting married. You could choose to live with a parent for the rest of your life and support them. A special needs child often lives with their parents for the rest of their lives.
Danielle: Marriage’s purpose is to tie two CONSENTING ADULTS into a union, which could be emotional, financial or political in nature depending on circumstances.
My Response: A business meager could tie two consenting adults into a financial relationship, too. Definitions that are so general in nature and could describe many different things are not good definitions.
Melissa: Marriage is a partnership between two people.
My response: You can have partnerships with co-workers, business owners, friends, contractors, and many other types of relationships. This, in no way, shows how marriage is unique from other relationships.
Melissa: Marriage itself is a civil contract wherein you pledge to share half of everything. That’s all it is.
My Response: If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was describing a business partnership.
One lady gave me the Oxford Dictionary definition which is: The legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship.
(As a side note: I went and looked in my actual dictionary from 1996 and the definition was: The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. It’s not completely satisfying but at least it isn’t completely vague and ambiguous.)
My Response: The recent definition is the vaguest definition I can ever imagine. If I was an alien and came to earth and asked what marriage was and this definition was given to me, I’d really have no clue as to what it truly meant. This is what happens when marriage gets watered-down into meaning anything people want it to mean. It loses purpose and explanation. If any relationship can be a marriage because you say so, then no relationship is a marriage. Notice how it says “two people.” It doesn’t even say “adults.” When I pressed the lady who offered this definition on if she would be okay with an adult marrying a child, she decided to make an adjustment to the dictionary definition.
“I’d add that it should say “two consenting adults.”
Yeah, but it doesn’t and now the definition that she offered up doesn’t agree with what she wants it to say. This definition from the dictionary is about as explanatory as saying an apple is a fruit that comes from a tree. It begs the question: Which fruit from which tree? If I pick a fruit from a tree how do I know it’s an apple or not?
I had a few others tell me that marriage is whatever a couple defines it to be, but that’s nonsensical. Words have meanings. We can’t go around just defining things however we want. That causes chaos and makes our language meaningless.
What surprised me most was that nobody added in the sexual aspect to the definition. As Catholics, we are accused all the time of being anti-sex, yet the Catechism explicitly talks about the sexual union between the married couple and the importance of it.
Finally, someone asked me for my definition and here is my answer paraphrased from the Catechism:
Marriage is a covenant in which a man and woman freely and fully bind themselves for life for the building up of the family. It is a sexual, lifelong commitment that should be faithful and a total gift of self. Marriage not only binds the married couple but brings together two families and builds foundations for society to be built off of. The couple is ordered toward the procreation of children and is …
The post What Is The Purpose of Marriage? Is It Whatever You Want It To Be? appeared first on .
]]>
Many years ago, my husband was trying to explain to someone how your relationship with your spouse, if you have one, is more important than any other earthly relationship.
The other person quickly said, “No, it’s with your kids.”
To which my husband said, “It doesn’t mean that you love your kids less, it’s just that they will move on and all that will be left is you and your spouse. If the marriage breaks down, everything falls apart.”
The other person didn’t quite seem to get what my husband was saying.
This is often what happens. When someone says your relationship with your spouse is one of the highest priorities, people often hear, “Don’t love your kids as much as your spouse.”
I think we’ve gone about explaining this not quite accurately enough so that people understand. This weekend, at our Sunday Bible study with our kids, my husband and I were talking about love with them. I’ll try to capture what I said to them.
Our number one relationship in all of life should be with God. God is love and if He is love then a relationship with Him is how we come to truly and fully understand what love is and how to love well. God loves us perfectly, fully, wholly, immensely, and eternally. There is no flaw in His love and there is no measure to it.
When we put God first in our lives and really truly try to live our lives for Him, we are graced with the capacity to love more like Him. The more we tap into God, the more we open ourselves up to being more like Him and the more we are like Him, the better we love.
It isn’t like I have a cookie jar full of love where I dole out my love to those in my family. It’s not as if I say, “Okay, Dustin, you get 1/2 of my love. Kids, you get to divide 1/4 of my love up evenly between you, and there will be 1/4 left over for my mom, dad, brother, sister, other family members, and friends.” This is not how love works when done right.
When we order things as they should, with God at the top of our priority list, the love is limitless. We don’t have to measure our love out to those around us. We don’t run out; our love doesn’t dry up. Quite the opposite, we are able to love more fully, wholly, and immensely, because we have tapped into the source of love–God. There is not an X amount of love in the world and when we’ve given it out, then it’s all gone. No, the beautiful thing about love is that the more we give away, the more we have to give away. It just keeps coming.
When I order my life with God at the top, I am able to love my husband more completely. This in turn allows me to love my children more completely. My marriage comes from God and through the love in our marriage came our children. It flows perfectly: From God, our marriage; from our marriage, our kids. Loving God first frees us to love in a deep, deep way. Our children come through the love in the marriage and it only makes sense that to keep the family happy, intact, and loving, the parents must make sure that they are loving each other well.
There has never been a family in the history of the world that has fallen apart when the spouses were both loving the other deeply, truly, and fully. There have been families–many in fact–that have fallen apart when the spouses neglected each other and focused all their love on their kids.
The point is that when someone says your marriage needs to take precedence over your other earthly relationships, they are not in anyway implying that you should love your kids less. No one is saying to completely ignore the young’uns and just stare into your spouses eyes all day. A healthy marriage, however, is more necessary, more essential to the well-being of all in the family.
But, what about single people and single mothers and fathers? No matter your situation in life, your relationship with God is the most important. Growing closer to God only helps you to love better all who cross your path. It helps you to offer a smile to a stranger, to say a kind word to the cashier, to help a co-worker who is feeling overwhelmed. We are commanded by God to love everyone, but how I show that love looks different depending on the closeness of my relationship with a certain person.
I often times get a feeling that people have a certain “pride” in saying that they love their kids more than their spouse. It is important to remember that kids desperately want their parents to love each other. They need to see that you do, because it gives them security and peace. Each month, my husband and I have date night and my two older children watch their younger brother. They never gripe or complain. In fact, my oldest told me that she loves seeing us go out on dates. The question is why? She loves it, because her foundation is her father and I. If we are broken, or teetering on shaky ground, our children will feel anxious, fearful, nervous, and doubtful of the state of the family.
I grew up with both my parents giving me and my siblings tons of attention and love. Sadly, they couldn’t find a way to love each other and I always ached for that. In fact, I wish in many ways, they would have put their effort into each other more than into us kids. My parents didn’t stay together and it is a truly difficult thing when your foundation breaks. I vowed in my heart that my kids would always be assured of my …
The post When I Put God First In My Marriage, Nobody Competes For My Love appeared first on .
]]>Many years ago, my husband was trying to explain to someone how your relationship with your spouse, if you have one, is more important than any other earthly relationship.
The other person quickly said, “No, it’s with your kids.”
To which my husband said, “It doesn’t mean that you love your kids less, it’s just that they will move on and all that will be left is you and your spouse. If the marriage breaks down, everything falls apart.”
The other person didn’t quite seem to get what my husband was saying.
This is often what happens. When someone says your relationship with your spouse is one of the highest priorities, people often hear, “Don’t love your kids as much as your spouse.”
I think we’ve gone about explaining this not quite accurately enough so that people understand. This weekend, at our Sunday Bible study with our kids, my husband and I were talking about love with them. I’ll try to capture what I said to them.
Our number one relationship in all of life should be with God. God is love and if He is love then a relationship with Him is how we come to truly and fully understand what love is and how to love well. God loves us perfectly, fully, wholly, immensely, and eternally. There is no flaw in His love and there is no measure to it.
When we put God first in our lives and really truly try to live our lives for Him, we are graced with the capacity to love more like Him. The more we tap into God, the more we open ourselves up to being more like Him and the more we are like Him, the better we love.
It isn’t like I have a cookie jar full of love where I dole out my love to those in my family. It’s not as if I say, “Okay, Dustin, you get 1/2 of my love. Kids, you get to divide 1/4 of my love up evenly between you, and there will be 1/4 left over for my mom, dad, brother, sister, other family members, and friends.” This is not how love works when done right.
When we order things as they should, with God at the top of our priority list, the love is limitless. We don’t have to measure our love out to those around us. We don’t run out; our love doesn’t dry up. Quite the opposite, we are able to love more fully, wholly, and immensely, because we have tapped into the source of love–God. There is not an X amount of love in the world and when we’ve given it out, then it’s all gone. No, the beautiful thing about love is that the more we give away, the more we have to give away. It just keeps coming.
When I order my life with God at the top, I am able to love my husband more completely. This in turn allows me to love my children more completely. My marriage comes from God and through the love in our marriage came our children. It flows perfectly: From God, our marriage; from our marriage, our kids. Loving God first frees us to love in a deep, deep way. Our children come through the love in the marriage and it only makes sense that to keep the family happy, intact, and loving, the parents must make sure that they are loving each other well.
There has never been a family in the history of the world that has fallen apart when the spouses were both loving the other deeply, truly, and fully. There have been families–many in fact–that have fallen apart when the spouses neglected each other and focused all their love on their kids.
The point is that when someone says your marriage needs to take precedence over your other earthly relationships, they are not in anyway implying that you should love your kids less. No one is saying to completely ignore the young’uns and just stare into your spouses eyes all day. A healthy marriage, however, is more necessary, more essential to the well-being of all in the family.
But, what about single people and single mothers and fathers? No matter your situation in life, your relationship with God is the most important. Growing closer to God only helps you to love better all who cross your path. It helps you to offer a smile to a stranger, to say a kind word to the cashier, to help a co-worker who is feeling overwhelmed. We are commanded by God to love everyone, but how I show that love looks different depending on the closeness of my relationship with a certain person.
I often times get a feeling that people have a certain “pride” in saying that they love their kids more than their spouse. It is important to remember that kids desperately want their parents to love each other. They need to see that you do, because it gives them security and peace. Each month, my husband and I have date night and my two older children watch their younger brother. They never gripe or complain. In fact, my oldest told me that she loves seeing us go out on dates. The question is why? She loves it, because her foundation is her father and I. If we are broken, or teetering on shaky ground, our children will feel anxious, fearful, nervous, and doubtful of the state of the family.
I grew up with both my parents giving me and my siblings tons of attention and love. Sadly, they couldn’t find a way to love each other and I always ached for that. In fact, I wish in many ways, they would have put their effort into each other more than into us kids. My parents didn’t stay together and it is a truly difficult thing when your foundation breaks. I vowed in my heart that my kids would always be assured of my …
The post When I Put God First In My Marriage, Nobody Competes For My Love appeared first on .
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