Should Parents Put Their Marriage Before Their Kids?

Dear Grandparents,

I am going to describe something you may have already noticed in your children and your grandchildren: I call it the Curse of the Child-Centered Family. Your children are shooting themselves in the foot by making your grandchildren the center of their lives. Child-centered families create anxious, exhausted parents and demanding, entitled kids who act out. Schools are overwhelmed by the demands of these children, and a spirit of community is draining from our neighborhoods.

The good news is, we can create healthy families and raise good citizens — if we teach our grown children to focus on their marriages instead of their children.

In my pastoral counseling as an Episcopal minister, I see many troubled children from families in which the parents believe their marriage is strong because they seldom argue. But in reality, their relations are characterized by distance: The husband may work long hours, or perhaps he goes out with friends three or four nights a week. It’s almost as if he's checked out of the marriage. The wife often fills this void by focusing her emotional energy on her children, typically on one child in particular. Mom and this child may become best friends, or else Mom constantly worries about the child. Either way, it's trouble.

When a child becomes the central focus of the family, it interferes with the natural weaning process essential to the child’s healthy development. In fact, the child can come to bear the symptoms of the parents' marital problems. Today I see more kids acting out, and more parents medicating them. But medication only treats the symptoms, not the cause — parents who keep the peace in their marriage by drifting apart.

Most parents would never dream that putting their children before their marriage could be wrong. They believe they just don't have the time for their spouse. But the truth is, they often feel more love for their kids than for their spouse. Parents convince themselves that putting their kids first is child-friendly, but in doing so they make two mistakes.

First, when a child is the center of the family, it becomes harder for parents to establish and enforce the boundaries the child needs to shape his character. So he simply badgers his parents until he gets his way. Future bosses and spouses, however, will not be as patient with this behavior.

Second, the children face tremendous pressure to fulfill the parents' emotional needs, which may lead the kids to act out. What had been a molehill then quickly becomes a mountain, as the anxious parents seek a diagnosis from physicians who are increasingly likely to medicate children. These steps can cripple a child's development and, when played out in families nationwide, they threaten the future of our citizenry.

So let’s stop wringing our hands and take action. We can preempt many of our grandchildren’s problems if we recognize that the best way to raise great kids is to build a great marriage. It gives kids good role models, and helps them learn self-reliance and cooperation as well.

If you want your grandchildren to grow up in the best possible environment, show this article to their parents. Tell them that the greatest gift they can give their children is a strong marriage. In my experience, your children will be relieved to hear it, because they already sense something's gone wrong. They're exhausted, and they've noticed that the more attention they give their kids, the more problems seem to arise. And you may be the only one they'll listen to.
 

Do you agree with the author's prescription for America's families? Join the discussion below. Elsewhere on Grandparents.com, join the celebration of "mean moms," gain appreciation for at-home dads, learn how to help a mom dealing with postpartum depression, and find out if your grandchildren are "getting older younger."