Contributed by MOTHERS volunteer and guest blogger Rosanne Weston.
Stephanie Coontz, a history professor and expert on historical and contemporary marriage, reported in an article published last week that at least 25 recent studies have shown children to be detrimental to marital health. That's not children in general, mind you; it's our own kids, our very own beloved daughters and sons. According to this depressing research, the time-honored match up between marriage and children looks less like a blessed union and more like one of your nightmare blind dates.

Of course that's just the bold face headline. There are nuances. Soon-to-be presented research by Philip and Carolyn Cowan of the University of California, Berkeley, Coontz writes, indicates that most of this reported decline in marital happiness occurs among couples where one "gave in" to having children to please the other, or where both were ambivalent. When both partners wanted the child(ren), marital satisfaction often increased. Another predictor of marital well-being, they noted, is whether or not the parents engage in intensive parenting to the neglect of each other and/or revert to traditional gender roles with the wife leaving work to care for the kids and the husband working longer hours to compensate for the wife's loss of income. The implication: avoid these traps and your marriage, with a little luck and a lot of hard work, will at least remain on an even keel.

I have no quarrel with any of this. Just as a mother cannot care well for others in her family if she neglects her own health, a relationship won't thrive if not fed some nutritious food and set out in the sun from time to time. But the family does not exist in a vacuum, and to not look at the impact of societal expectations, norms and the resulting public policies is to ignore some of the biggest factors affecting family health.
Click here to read the whole post from Your (Wo)man in Washington®.