I consider myself to be a person not easily frustrated...most of the time. But I just came from a class where i actually found myself rolling my eyes for the majority of the class period. We were talking about marriage and family in my developmental psychology class and the teacher painted just about the bleakest picture of marital and family satisfaction that i can imagine. I know that there are about a billion things i can't possibly understand about the dynamics of marriage and what its like to be a parent, but to come at these things from a statistical, research driven perspective is, to me, the entirely wrong way to look at it. "70 percent of people who wrote in to a newspaper article asking 'if you could do it all over, would you still have kids?' said No, they wouldn't." First of all, it is clear that that research is not sound. Not only does that sample suck enormously, I simply cant wrap my mind around the idea that there are people out there who look back on their lives and wish that they hadn't had children. My teacher also explained that there is virtually no possibility of a child bringing two spouses closer to one another...that having a child is in a sense, not unifying. I have to say that first, i think it's a problem to make universal claims like that, but i also think that this is completely absurd. He just went on and on, talking about divorce, and how it can be a second chance for couples for whom marriage just doesn't work...how love isnt a guarantee depending on the actions of your spouse....and something about all of this just shocked me incredibly. What about love being a choice? what about Jesus? There seemed to be so many essential elements missing from the discussion, and it broke my heart a little to think that people really do believe these things about marriage. Of course we can't do it on our own. Of course we can't be parents on our own and think that we can find our own happiness in the things that we do, instead of who we are in JESUS. it won't work.
I just needed to rant about that for a minute or two...this post really doesnt have a point except that class today helped me to realize even further how much i NEED God in my life, or i can do nothing.