Magic 5 Hours.

Often times when a couple gets married they stop showing each other little displays of affection, like they would have while dating, courting, or during engagement. It is important for couple to continue to show small affection and one on one time together throughout their entire marriage. In John Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, he describes the ‘magic 5 hours’ that each couple should be spending together each week in order to maintain kindness, togetherness, and love, in their relationship after marriage. The areas he touches on are Partings, Reunions, Admiration, Affection, and Weekly Dates. Partings are the moments when one spouse or the other leaves the home in the morning, either for work or school or some other activity, he believes that the couple, rather than a rushed kiss while running out the door, should spend 2 minutes saying their goodbyes and giving their goodbye kiss before the one leaves, 5 days a week. With reunions he believes that when this spouse then returns home in the evening that the couples should spend 20 minutes discussing how their days went and again hugging, kissing, and saying hello. Admiration is just that, tell your spouse at least 5 minutes every day what different things you love and admire about them, and all the reasons why you are grateful for them. Also, everyday spend 5 minutes with your spouse sharing affection, hugs, kisses, telling them you love them, they look beautiful, etc. And last, make sure you set aside 2 hours every week to go on a date, just the two of you. So at the end of the week your time together, sharing small acts of love and affection, will total 5 hours as shown below:

Partings: 2 minutes x 5 days = 10 minutes
Reunions: 20 minutes x 5 days = 100 minutes
Admiration: 5 minutes x 7 days = 35 minutes
Affection: 5 minutes x 7 days = 35 minutes
Weekly Date: 2 hours x 1 day = 120 minutes
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Week Total = 300 minutes or 5 hours!

As you continue spending time together, talking with one another, and sharing love, admiration and affection for one another you will have a stronger marriage and will find more comfort and joy in that marriage. So don’t forget to share the magic 5 hours with your spouse!

Out of Context UPDATE.

In my previous blog Out of Context I wrote about the APA's brief that "showed" how children raised by same-sex couples were no worse off than those raised by a traditional family with a mother and father. Well, a new study has just been published in Canada documenting certain outcomes in children raised in a variety of family structures (i.e., traditional, gay, lesbian, single parent, etc). This is the best data we have to date because it is census data and we can essentially compare apples to apples unlike previous studies, the outcome of children raised by same-sex couples versus traditional families. If you'd like to check out the study you can find it by clicking HERE.

I just wanted to keep you all updated. Now what do you think about same-sex parenting versus traditional parenting? Have your views changed? Have they deepened?

Teen Pregnancy.

Last night I sat on the couch while my roommate talked on the phone with her 17-year-old friend, trying to convince the teenage girl that she should not get pregnant. Earlier that day the teenage girl had texted my roommate and said, “So, I really want a baby, and I have an offer.” The text itself exposed in this girl the attitude that having a child is nonchalant and even cavalier. At 17, this girl was convinced that having a baby was the best move she could make in her life. After quite a bit of persuading, and explaining to the girl exactly how much work a baby is, the teenage girl finally decided that maybe getting pregnant wasn’t the best choice for her to make.

It seems like teen pregnancy has recently become something that young girls seek after, as something that is exciting and worthwhile. Our nation in particular seems to be apathetic, and sometimes even positive, towards teenagers getting pregnant. This is something that has always confused me.

Our teacher gave us some statistics this week that appeared as the following:

In 1950 out of all the teenage girls who got pregnant out of wedlock ...
          * 50% got married, and kept the baby
          * 49% gave the baby up for adoption
          * 1% elected to have an abortion
In 2000 out of all the teenage girls who got pregnant out of wedlock …
          *50% kept the baby, but did not get married
          * 1% gave the baby up for adoption
          * 49% elected to have an abortion

Upon receiving these statistics I had two initial reactions. The first was why has our country decided that having an abortion is better or more understandable than continuing a pregnancy and then giving the child up for adoption? And the second was do we as a country really believe it is okay for young girls to have children outside of marriage, or are we just condoning it as ‘part of the world we live in’?

The statistics on teenagers choosing to have an abortion rather than give their child up for adoption absolutely astounded me. I feel that this world is so focused on individualistic selfishness that they do not account for the fact that more lives are at stake than just their own in any given situation. Whether they believe a fetus is alive already or not doesn’t change the fact that a potential life is still at stake, and to end that potential life because you just don’t want to have to deal with the consequences of your own actions is ridiculously and unquestionably a sign of selfishness at ones very core.

This week in class my teacher made this simple statement, “The single best predictor of whether you will live in poverty or not is if you had a dad who lived in your home with you.” This just makes me wonder if people truly realize everything we are condoning when we allow young girls to become single mothers.

How do you feel after seeing the statistics and hearing the statement made by my teacher? Should we as a nation, or even just as individuals and communities, make more of an effort to prevent teenage and out of wedlock pregnancy? Or is it just none of our business?

A Theory.

This week we talked about four different behavioral theories pertaining to families. As we talked about each theory I saw different parts of each that fit very specifically into my own family. The different theories we discussed were …

Systems Theory – focuses on social systems and how their interdependent parts maintain order by using roles, rules and feedback loops.
Exchange Theory – views social interaction as a cost-benefit analysis in which people try to keep their costs lower than their rewards.
Symbolic Interaction Theory – views humans as cognitive creatures who are influenced and shaped by their interaction experiences.
Conflict Theory – focuses on contradictory interests, inequalities, and the resulting conflict and change.

As we got into deeper discussions about each theory I felt as though systems theory best explained for me the behavioral actions of my family while I was younger. It is all about how family members learn the different rules of their family system and then adhere to them. How we also assume roles such as “peacekeeper” or “clown” etc. I could see each of these things manifested in my family and it just made me realize that we are not all as different in our families, our communities, etc, as we may think we are. In general we all adhere to many of the same rules and family systems in our own lives as those around us do.

What role did you have in your family? What roles did your parents and siblings take on? Have you met many others who have had these same roles portrayed in their own families?

Out of Context.

   ‘You can make any thing seem good or bad when you take it out of context.’  That is the lesson I learned this week. The American psychological association put out a brief on lesbian and gay parenting to use during the Supreme Court’s ruling regarding same-sex marriage. However, the facts reported in that brief were far from accurate. The purpose of the brief was mainly to show that children raised by same-sex couples were no worse off than children raised by a traditional family built up of a mom and a dad. This brief was very influential during the ruling, but if you take a close look, things aren’t what they seem to be concerning this brief.
     Loren Marks, a professor at LSU and respected researcher, examined the findings in the APA’s brief and then had his findings published in the social science research journal. (Read the abstract for Marks’ article HERE.) What Marks found was less then accurate reporting’s in the APA’s brief. While the purpose of the brief was to show children from same-sex homes were no worse off than children from traditional homes the research used as proof often compared children from same-sex homes to children from single parent homes, not from traditional homes. That is just one of the many flaws Marks found with the brief. (Read more about the flaws Marks found HERE.)
     I must admit that I was baffled by the amount of irrelevant research used by the APA to prove their point. I, like many people, just assumed that, seeing as the APA is the largest and most accredited psychological association their information, research, and conclusions MUST be correct. Yet, we must always be willing to look deeper in order to find truth. To be good stewards of learning and understanding we must be willing to find the true context of what is given to us, because when taken out of context, anything, including research, can be made to look positive or negative. 

How do you feel about Marks' findings concerning the APA's brief on same-sex parenting?