Parenthood

by Rev. Andrew Gama

Marriage is like driving a car because you must keep your hands on the wheel throughout the journey and not just at the outset.

This is what psychologists mean when they talk about the progressive menaces of life. Menace may not be happy way to describe the experiences of matrimony but it does convey the idea that marriage is never a static relationship. And in the progress of normal relationship a couple is continually encountering changing situation that demand a new orientation, a new pattern of reaction, a new way of facing life.

The progressive cycle of marriage is into five stages.

First is family founding from the wedding until the first child is born.

Second, child bearing from the birth of the first child until the first child enters school.

Third, is child rearing when the first child enters school until the first child enters college or leaves home.

Fourth, is child launching, from the time the first child leaves until the last child leaves.

Fifth, is the emptiness when the parents are alone until the death of one of the mates.

A marriage can get into trouble at any time in this cycle whenever the couple fails to mature. However, it is a significant and tragic fact that many couples successfully navigate the difficulties of the first four stages only to find their marriage on the rocks after twenty years of married life when they come into the last stage of the emptiness.

When two parents wave goodbye to the last child they are entering into one of their most critical periods of marital adjustment. Two roads are open to them. They may accept the situation as life’s good gift to explore new heights of marital happiness and achieve a richer togetherness. Or they may travel a road of increasing loneliness, bitterness, and neurotic behaviour.

The latter route may ultimately end in the divorce court when the husband and wife relationship is so inadequate and insecure. They are unprepared for the test of the emptiness.

(To be continued)

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