Parenting and Marital Generosity

Parenting can strain a happy marriage, but it doesn’t have to

Randy Hicks, President of Georgia Family Council
January 19, 2012

Will having children sink a happy marriage?

If television, movies and magazines are any indication, then it’s a certainty. A caricature of parenting misery seems as easy to spot in popular media as it is in the aisle of a supermarket.

The complexion of the modern American family has changed in the past few decades. There are fewer married households, more cohabiting and single-parent homes, and most couples wait longer to get married. All of this is occurring at a time when more adults seemingly evaluate marriage and parenting solely by the way each arrangement will satisfy their own personal happiness, not the needs and happiness of their spouse or children. So apparently, kids are being viewed more often as a barrier to happiness. But is this really true?

New research by two well-known social scientists who study marriage, Elizabeth Marquardt and W. Bradford Wilcox delved deep into these questions about marriage, kids and happiness. Their new report titled When Baby Makes Three made some very interesting findings, including ways to prevent parenting “from making your marriage miserable” as they described it in a recent article in The Atlantic.

Contrary to the modern cultural narrative, Marquardt and Wilcox found that married parents are likely to experience more personal happiness and less depression than unmarried parents. Among women for example, 50 percent of married moms reported being “very happy” in life, compared to 39 percent of cohabiting moms and 25 percent of single moms.

Married parents are also the most likely to report “life has an important purpose” compared to people without children. Fifty-seven percent of married women agreed with this statement compared to only 40 percent of childless women.

So having kids doesn’t automatically torpedo one’s personal happiness, in fact it tends to improve it. However, Marquardt and Wilcox did find that parenting can have a negative effect on marital happiness – a decline that occurs after parenting begins.

And is it any wonder why? All of a sudden a couple’s lifestyle of quiet evenings on the couch, spontaneous trips to the movies, uninterrupted dinners and weekend getaways becomes midnight feedings, piles of laundry and refereeing tantrums and sibling squabbles. For most parents, spontaneity in the relationship is usually responding to some child-related crisis, great or small, like kitchen spills, playtime injuries, department store meltdowns, or a science projects the night before it’s due.

Married life can become more about the ongoing challenge to divide and conquer the big demands of childrearing and less about nurturing love and romance.

Despite all of this, Marquardt and Wilcox discovered something that surprised them. A rather large minority of husbands and wives (35 percent to be exact) do not find parenting to be a hindrance to a happy marriage – despite the stress of raising kids. And they identified 10 factors that characterize these successful marriages. Some of them include similar religious faith, shared housework, high sexual satisfaction and support from family and friends.

But one factor stands out above the others – something these researchers call marital generosity, or “the virtue of giving good things to [one’s spouse] freely and abundantly.” Stated plainly, it’s everyday acts of affection and appreciation – like making the other person coffee, a back rub after a long day, showing affection, and forgiving faults and failings. Regular acts of kindness like these are linked to a much higher likelihood of a happy marriage, even in the midst of parenting.

The irony is that prioritizing the happiness of your spouse makes your own marital happiness more likely. In other words, your own happiness becomes the by-product of seeking the happiness of your spouse. It’s what works to create a marriage that is not only healthy and strong, but able to remain so while raising kids.

And in the real-world challenge of parenting, one of the best ways we can demonstrate a commitment to the well-being of our kids is to ensure they are being raised by parents whose marriage is a happy one.

Randy Hicks is the president of Georgia Family Council, a non-profit research and education organization committed to fostering conditions in which individuals, families and communities thrive. For more information, go to www.georgiafamily.org, (770) 242-0001, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .