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More confirmation on what I have been saying all along.
Em
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When in trouble or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout.
Em
Definitely in the water is wet category, but now it's "official".Dec. 25, 2004, 6:44PMFor many couples today, new baby brings discontentThe Wall Street Journalhttp://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2963214The birth of a baby, folk wisdom holds, brings couples together.Except when it doesn't.Struggling to divvy up child-care duties after their little boy was born ayear ago, Tina Anderson and her husband, Greg, almost hit the rocks. "Wehad a fight over whether to bathe the baby with a sponge or a washcloth. Iwas ready to get in the car and leave him. That's how nuts it gets," saidthe Colleyville mother.More couples are finding the shift from partnership to parenthood a painfulsurprise. Too often, the transition to starting a family brings theopposite of the idyllic closeness couples dreamed of — including arguments,conflict and strife.The pattern is so pronounced that a prominent research group, the NationalMarriage Project at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., said in its2004 annual report, "Children seem to be a growing impediment for thehappiness of marriages."Several trends are at work. Research highlighting early care as crucial tolifelong brain development has elevated parental anxieties, fueling maritalstrain.Fretful parents also are taking on debt to gear up as never before;marketers have shrewdly positioned a flood of costly new products, from$300 crib-linen sets to $700 stroller-bassinet combos, as aiding babies'development. Average inflation-adjusted debt among households headed byparents younger than 35 has soared 33 percent since 1994, to $80,000;child-related spending is a major cause, said SRI Consulting BusinessIntelligence, a research firm in Princeton, N.J.Also, more husbands and wives are having trouble defining their roles in anera when anything goes — mothers can be breadwinners and dads can do childcare. While the Andersons patched up their quarrel, other couples haveenduring role conflicts.Today's well-educated, skilled young mothers, many of whom already haverewarding careers, face a bigger adjustment to motherhood than women in thepast. Jennifer Moeny and her husband, whose baby was born this month, hadlong planned that she would quit her career as a soil-science researcher.But resigning last month from a job where she had been the first woman inher work group left her stressed and sad; "It's one thing to plan yourwhole life to do something, and another to actually do it," said Moeny ofState College, Pa.To avert the strain, some couples are taking new-parent training classesthat go beyond the usual labor-and-childbirth instruction.In one example, a six-week, federally funded public program at theUniversity of Washington in Seattle called "Becoming Parents"(www.becomingparents.com) has taught 235 expectant couples how to improvecommunication amid the demands of infant care.Some couples are taking marriage-education courses even before gettingpregnant. Such seminars, which don't focus specifically on parenting, butgive couples valuable skills, vary in length from a half-day to a semester,for fees ranging from a suggested donation to about $500. Some couples aregetting such courses as a present. The Web site www.smartmarriages.com,which lists many marriage programs, offers suggested wording for giftcertificates that could be given to couples.It's long been known that marital satisfaction takes a dip after babiesstart coming. But the latest research shows combining marriage and baby isgetting even harder.X dissatisfaction: Marital satisfaction after the first baby's birth isactually 42 percent lower among the latest generation of parents — mainlyGen-Xers — than previous generations, said Jean Twenge of San Diego StateUniversity, based on a survey of 90 studies of 31,000 married people. Other research: Studies shows one-third to one-half of new parents have asmuch marital distress as couples in marriage counseling.
When in trouble or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout.
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