Introduction
Transition to parenthood is one of the most demanding and increasingly complex life experiences that sets a couple’s future relationship trajectory for determining the quality and stability of their relationship (Kluwer, 2010). The infant’s arrival requires the couple to adjust not only to daily baby care chores but also to the new roles of parents, often leaving the interpersonal relationship between husband and wife to a low priority. The prevailing majority of scholarship describe different levels of decline in the quality of marital relationship postpartum (Wallace & Gotlib, 1990; Helms-Erikson, 2001; Twenge, Campbell, & Foster, 2003; Mitnick, Heyman, & Smith Slep, 2009; Kluwer, 2010; Umberson, Pudrovska, & Reczek, 2010). At the same time, some scholarship explains how couples have more joy, happiness and a sense of fulfillment in life because of the baby (Petch & Halford, 2008; Nelson et al., 2013), while other findings report identical levels of marital happiness before and after birth of the baby (Amato et al., 2003). A genuine controversy lies in whether a decrease or increase of couple happiness takes place at transition to parenthood. During this transitioning process, new sets of tasks challenge the couples to act in new roles and adjust their daily routines, behavior, and relationship. When the couples experience less relationship distress in completing the transition tasks, they have a higher potential to create a positive context for raising an emotionally and physically healthy child and less chances for divorce. Because divorce has negative lasting effects on descendants for the next three generations, including lower education attainment, lower income, higher relationship distress, and higher chances...
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Conflicts within relationships are inevitable and some conflict can help strengthen a relationship; however, in marriages and families, many people fail to work through their conflict, which results in unhealthy patterns of behavior. Over time, if left unresolved, these patterns of behavior can lead to a breaking of the relationship. Furthermore, most people do not set out seeking conflict within relationships, but rather they lack the emotional maturity to move through conflict. In fact, it is not the differences between the two parties that create the conflict, but rather the emotional reaction to their differences. Therefore, an intervention is required to begin the healing process of working through conflict. Often a pastor or counselor
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The dramatic rise in the rate of divorce in the United States between 1960 and 1980 is well known, and even more so are the high divorce rates over the past twenty years. In 1970, twelve percent of American families with children under age eighteen were headed by single parents, and by 1984, one-fourth of American families and nearly sixty percent of black families were headed by single parents (Demo & Acock, 1988, p. 619). These high divorce rates have resulted in numerous changes in American family life. While predictions vary, the consensus is that most youth will spend some time prior to age eighteen in a single-parent household based on recent social and demographic trends. Individuals with divorced parents are at increased risk of experiencing psychological problems in adulthood (Amato & Sobolewski, 2001, p. 900). Growing up divorced has become an alternative developmental path for a substantial number of children in this country (Kalter, 1987, p. 587). These trends in family composition have major repercussions for the life course of children and their well-being. Studies have shown that adults with divorced parents, when compared with adults with continuously married parents, report to greater unhappiness, less satisfaction with life, a weaker sense of control, more symptoms of anxiety and depression, and a greater use of mental health services. Overall, most children of divorced parents have experienced dramatic declines in their economic circumstances, abandonment by one or both of their parents, the diminished capacity of both parents to attend meaningfully and constructively to their children’s needs, and diminished contact with many familiar or potential sources of psychological support.
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Girgis, George, & Anderson (2011) define marriage as the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together. These marriages are intended to last eternity and are partially accomplished by raising children together, yet four of every ten marriages lead to divorce and of these divorces, 35% involve children (Ambert, 2009). Children tend to blame themselves for the divorce and are usually caught in the crossfire. These divorces lead to both stress and depression for children and without a strong sense of family, children will have a huge disadvantage over children with a stable healthy family (Arreola, Hartounian, Kurges, Maultasch, & Retana, 2013). Without the ability to cope with the stress of a divorce, children can be effected in multiple ways including a change in mentality, unacceptable behavioural traits and both short and long term emotional factors that will ultimately lead to a critical issue in child development.
Without the presence of children always around, childless people have several advantages to their experiences in life. The average childless person has obtained a better education, has more money, and are actively employed, while also committed to that employment (Connidis, 2010, pp. 182-83). They also have a
“Men and women have been having babies since human life began” (Cowan & Cowan, 1995, p. 412). Love and unity is most expectant by couples who are experiencing their first born child but experience the opposite in some cases (Trillingsgaard, Baucom, Heyman, & Elklit, 2012). The experience of parenthood is often quite different from what couples expect because there are highs and lows such as joy, affection, role overload, parental fatigue, reduced time in couple intamcy and leisure (Trillingsgaard, Baucom, Heyman, & Elklit, 2012). Recently, the transition into parenthood has become a subject of intensive and analysis by psychologists, sociologists, mental health profressinals and more due to a claim made by sociologist LeMasters that 83% of a new parents had experienced moderate or sever crisis in their family life for the first five years following the birth of their first child (Cowan & Cowan, 1995). “Theories of life course and family development imply that life changess and transitions create conditions of risks; new challenges can outstrip pre-exiting vulnerabilities and inadequancies” (Cowan & Cowan, 1995, p. 412). The transition into parenthood is an intersesting case for lifespan development theories because unlike most traumatic transitions, becoming a parent is often regarded as a positive change in a couple’s life (Cowan & Cowan, 1995). Studies of the transition into parenthood shows that new parents experience shifts in five family domains: relationship quality, the quality of new parents’ relationship as a couple, the quality of the relationship each parent develops with the baby, the balance between life, stress and social support in the new family along with the distress or well-being of the child and ...
My motivation to research, discover, and stimulate social change is rooted in my childhood experiences. As a young child I grew up in a household filled with domestic violence, which ultimately ended with the suicide of my father. I subsequently came to know a variation of the typical American nuclear family: a single parent household. As I began to study family dynamics further, I was able to see my life experiences in a broader context. In hindsight, I now realize the impact and weight my own mother had on my personal development. It was through her strength, determination, and optimism that I was able to find the spark within myself to set goals and dreams for my future. She encouraged me never to accept anything at face value, including the way our society attempts to define my womanhood. As a result of this, I now question American culture’s classification of a ‘successful’ family and the factors that determine a ‘stable’ family.
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There are almost 13 million single parents today in the U.S. (Lauer, 2012). Each single-parent family is different and faces individual trials, including testing the limits of family and what it means to be related. No matter the causes of single parenthood—whether it be from a parent passing away, divorce, or someone simply choosing to have a child without being married—the conflicts plaguing these families are very similar. The statement “single parenting is the toughest job in the world” is a bold one that highlights the struggles of single parents everywhere, and it is one I happen to agree with.
Marriage life greatly contributes to exceptional family structures in today’s society. The article entitled “Married vs. Single Moms: Who Gets the Better Deal?” by Stephanie Wood, Jackie Spinelli, and Patty Onderko examines what