I'm at The Pasta Factory getting my chicken parm on and blogging like a fiend. As I peer over the top of my laptop screen I see a couple and their two little girls. It is a beautiful family. Both parents are interacting lovingly with their children, but not with each other. It looks as if they are two strangers crammed into the same side of a booth against their will.
It's sad, but this doesn't seem very unusual. In fact, if I was sitting on the other side of the booth and watching the happy girls eat their lunch with an enthusiasm I envy, I would be thinking, "Wow! That's what all family's should be like."
How often do the kids become our lives and we lose interest in our spouses? In ourselves? Far, far too often. So, what's the solution? Ideas?
I know only couple that has successfully avoided this trap. First, their kids are spaced apart in age - so not everyone at the table needs hovering. Second, they don't hover, anyway. Third, when they interact as a family, they include their kids. They don't have separate conversations; one for adults, and one for kids.
ReplyDeleteAlso, they actually like each other. That's a quality many couples lack, but don't realize until after they've had children.
I think the last point was the only this couple missed.
ReplyDeleteIt usually is.
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