It’s a Crazy World

I was reading the latest edition of Parents Magazine, the August 2008 issue.  There is an article on page 78 by Heather Gowen Walsh called 5 New-Mom Challenges.  It was well written, and fairly interesting, but I took exception to her challenge #2: “You Hate Your Husband.”  She goes on to quote Jean Kunhardt, an author and director of Soho Parenting in New York City.  “You’ll probably think about divorcing your husband at least a dozen times during that first year – and that’s totally normal!”  Wow.  I am continually shocked with the glib and flip attitude many people have regarding marriage, family, parenting and children.  I talked with my wife about the comment, and she thought the lady was crazy.  My wife and I deal with stress very well, we are a team.  We are a family.  We don’t think about divorcing… are you kidding?  Is this what our culture has come to?  It seems that a lot of people, including Jean Kunhardt still don’t really get it.  

Creating a family and committed relationship IS NOT just something you decide to do, It is something you ARE.  You BECOME a family.  That IS your identity.  It’s WHO YOU ARE.   You don’t just decide that you don’t like your spouse, or are bored and want a different life.  You don’t stay the same when you REALLY make a committment and start a family.  You BECOME a new person.  You don’t have the same desires and whims that you did when you were younger. 

I think people are watching too much television and too many movies, they think that it portrays REAL LIFE.  I have got news for you, IT DOESN’T.  Many, many people live in la-la-land, not in the real world.  No wonder we have so many problems as a society!  People are completely out to lunch.

Maybe it’s just me and my family, but it seems that people need to really communicate and pay-attention better.  You hear about a man married (to what he thought was a woman) for several years, and it turns out to be another man the whole time!  How do you miss that?  Then there is the woman who goes to the doctor complaining of pain in her stomach, only to have a baby.  And she didn’t even know she was pregnant!  How can this happen?  

Anyway, I am done complaining about the stupid comments in that article.  It seems that every month one of those Parent-type magazines has some outlandish or insane comment that they think is totally normal and sound advice. 

I am confident that the majority of people out there are reasonable, intelligent, loving and capable of making decisions.  It’s the media’s job (I guess) to constantly bombard us with the idiot’s, moron’s and wierdo’s.  Hey, that’s what sells.  It’s up to us as adults to sift through all of the garbage and decipher what’s real and has value, versus what’s fantasy and simply entertaining.  That’s where so many people seem to be going wrong. 

Tags: , dad, dadsworld, divorce, Jean Kunhardt, mom, parenting, parents magazine, pregnant, soho parenting