What About the Children?

“Throughout history, marriage has first and foremost been an institution for procreation and raising children. It has provided the cultural tie that seeks to connect the father to his children by binding him to the mother of his children.” (Amato, 2005)

With the rise of individualism in the United States culture, marriage no longer seems to be about the children, but about the two individuals who create the union. Instead of “What's best for the child?” the questions are “What's in it for me?” “Are my needs being met?” Traditional marriage and family have been a casualty of this mindset. But, what about the children? If marriage was originally set up for them, how are they faring with the weakening of marriage?

• First of all, there are now less children being born.  State of Our Union (2012), reports that, “in the mid 1880's more than 75% of all households contained children...One hundred years later, in 1960, this number had dropped to slightly less than half of all households. In 2011, just five decades later, only 32 percent of households included children.”
  
  John F. Kennedy said that "Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.” Would a society who didn't value children have hope for the future? With more importance put on the individual's needs, less people are willing to sacrifice their freedom to raise children. State of Our Union goes on to say that “...adults are less likely to be living with children, that neighborhoods are less likely to contain children, and that children are less likely to be a consideration in daily life.”
• Making the next point, that many children who are born, will find their need to be raised by both parents put after the needs of their parents. Even though “Research clearly demonstrates children growing up with two continuously married parents are less likely than other children to experience a wide range of cognitive, emotional, and social problems, not only during childhood, but also in adulthood.” (Amato, 2005 p.15) many adults still choose to divorce.
  
   While it is true that hostile marriages are not an ideal setting for raising children, Amato states that “...in a twenty year study, (they) found that the majority of marriages that ended in divorce fell into the low-conflict group. Spouses in these marriages did not fight frequently or express hostility toward their partners...many ended their marriages to seek greater happiness with new partners.

President Harold B. Lee counseled:

If we start focusing on the needs of the child and work to create strong marriages, maybe we, as individuals, will find the happiness we are seeking.