XIII. Exhortation-
I remember exactly when I realized the great gift my parents gave me, a stable and loving home. The first semester I was in college. In my school, I had very limited exposure to the turbulence and the strains of divorce. There was none in my family. So, I groused about not having fancy stuff, better house, a boat, fancy cars. Of course, my Catholic education was paid for with the lack of these items, but I didn’t realize that at the time. I was just a bratty self-indulgent teenager.
That first semester September 1980, my eyes were opened to the devastation that Wilcox discusses in his book starting in the 1970’s. I was horrified. I also was greatly chastened. I asked my parents for forgiveness. I also thanked them then, and many times through the years. As I age, I thank them more profoundly.
Tightrope balance marriage proceeds children but the children purpose of the marriage. Couple love one another children require that stability, children knew they came from love. Imperative keep first thing first, the marriage union.
Divorce so easy some honored the commitment despite hardships.
End quote pg 117 The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, Paul Bloom
Resources https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/elitism-marriage-rates-hypocrisy/677401/ paywall
Their familism finds support from the college-educated elites in California, who endorse family diversity in public but are much more marriage-minded in private, especially when children are in the picture. In their own ways, these three groups—Asians, immigrants, and more educated Californians—probably realize that the pathway to educational attainment, financial success, and the American Dream is much more likely to run through stable, married families than the alternatives.18 And so they live accordingly, even if—in their roles
as movie producers, Silicon Valley executives, educators, and doctors—they often lend public voice to the cause of progressive family values.
https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/ifs-stateofcontradiction-final-1.pdf pg 20 accessed Jun 17, 2024
https://youtu.be/26k8MYqvicw?si=f4XX5JdMU_e_K3Gq accessed June 17, 2024
@25:05 Elite phenomenon of promoting family diversity when in private lives do not live this way
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/02/sacred-sex Accessed June 17,2024
Encourage suffered under less-than-ideal marriage not doomed. Compassionate it mattered and find ways to heal and not perpetuate it in the next generation.
Goodness and unity in a husband and wife.
Limelight cast onto the other for the goodness of the marriage. Selfless donation. Putting off marriage harder burden on younger woman.