Week 2: Choosing Marriage

"Help young men become marriageable" is the subject that stuck out to me from reading The State of Our Unions: Marriage in America 2012. I was raised in a community where nobody else but my family were LDS church members and being different than the majority was hard and constantly challenging. By the time we were in high school, most of my friends were involved in sexual relationships with their partners and that was the norm. The subject of marriage was laughable to most of my friends because they associated marriage to a boring/lack of freedom state, suggesting that "a paper" won't make them love each other more. People think they need to have a fancy and ridiculously expensive wedding and they spend years working hard to afford it. I wish people would invest that much time and effort in their actual relationships and consider the blessings of becoming parents and creating a safe and loving environment for them.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we are encouraged to serve a mission. Young men and women who choose that are willing to go wherever they are called in the world and share the gospel with everyone. During that time they gain a sense of independence along with necessary skills that will benefit them as they work on creating happy and healthy marriages.

 I am forever grateful for a husband who was raised in such a way to develop the wonderful attributes and qualities he now shares with me and our children. I've seen my brothers being raised in a different way than I was. My parents always fixed everything for them and they were never put to work or challenged to become better. I love the programs we have in our church for the young men and I appreciate the support from their leaders. If we truly love our sons (and daughters, of course) we need to let them experience things on their own and show love, support, and compassion without trying to fix everything for them. That's how they grow and learn, by solving their own problems.

In Paul R. Amato's article called "The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation" I was touched by how many couples chose to terminate their marriages, without trying harder to put together the broken parts. Amato talks about how important are the parents' decisions when it comes to their marital status, living environment, and education.  We are the ones who can change the future by avoiding single parenting, non marital births, or exposing our children (no matter the age) to violence, abuse, and contention. The children need a safe and loving environment where they can grow and learn by example.

 

President Kimball's quote made me think of our responsibilities as wives, husbands and parents described in The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Heavenly Father entrusted us with talents and sent the Holy Ghost to watch over us, as we try to live our lives according to the teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ. Both my husband and I constantly challenge our kids to pray and ask Heavenly Father to teach them what they should do. We also tell them to find out on their own about the truthfulness of the church, the scriptures, and about the existence of Jesus. We teach them the best we can, but in the end we hope they will have enough spiritual experiences to keep them on the right path. We also hope to be good examples on how a family should be like.

Divorce happens for different reasons and nobody should be in a relationship where they are being mistreated. The church doesn't encourage divorce, especially when innocent children are involved, but there are cases when it is necessary. We should prayerfully seek for good and worthy spouses and then give everything to the institution of marriage and to parenthood. Family is ordained of God and we need to protect it and help nourish it. 

 "Though we could not choose or direct in our earliest days the home we grew up in or the parents who bore us, we can do something about the home our children will grow up in" (Marion D. Hanks, The Gift of Self, p. 28, https://archive.org/stream/giftofself00hank#page/28/mode/2up (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.).