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Comment by dpweb | Hacker News Reader

The relationship has to come first. It precedes the marriage and family, and I think societal norms are to put the children and the piece of paper first.

It's a living thing that needs to be fed, and when times get tough what do people often do. Stop being kind to each other, stop having sex, building resentment and accelerating the decline.

The goal is not to keep it together at all costs. The goal is to live an authentic life, and if that is going to be with a partner, don't lose sight of that fact it's the two of you that's important, not all the other stuff that comes along.

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Once kids enter the picture, they they are the priority. Not giving up the "authentic life" to give your children the "best life" is pure selfishness. Once you have kids, your life is no longer your own...it's theirs. It's been proven myriad ways that kids are better off with both parents for many developmental reasons. I'm not against divorce, but it should be an insurmountable rift that leads there.

I think the idea is that if you DO nurture and feed your relationship, you're more likely to have the kind of environment where there is love and compassion, and that is an infinitely better situation for the kids than one where the parents hate each other and are resentful.

> It's been proven myriad ways that kids are better off with both parents for many developmental reasons.

Is that true? I know that it's been shown that kids in 2 parent households do better than single parent ones, but I don't know that research has separated out the "correlation vs. causation" aspect of that. I.e. would it be better for the kids 2 parents that hate each other to stick together rather than separate.

> “ correlation vs. causation"

Such a study would not have any importance to me. One family that is stricken with physically abusive or alcoholic parents combined with another family that does not have those issues. How can you say the kids in the first family are better off without divorce compared to then second family?

You gotta normalize for incarceration, abuse, narcissism, neglect, financial issues, sicknesses, mental health issues. All those are way more likely to either prevent marriage or end in divorce. Many of those are repeating patterns in parents life's even after divorce.

Prioritize the relationship with your partner (living the “authentic life”, as the GP puts it) is how you keep the happy family together to benefit the kid the most. The alternative leads to either insurmountable rift or parents yelling at each other, which might be just barely better than divorce.

If you leave your new born at home to join a swing sex party, you’re a bad parent. But if you can only have sex with your partner once a year in the first 10 years of your child, it should be considered just as bad, and society tends to ignore the latter case much more.

Turn out it’s the balancing act that would be difficult, and there is probably no one-liner to explain it all huh? Who could have known.

If you want to keep a family together, the relationship must come first. Or, order it however you want, the relationship must be attended to with the hard work which it requires. Imagine raising children in a relationship in which there's no sex and the parents are only together out of a sense of duty. How will that affect their own sense of how a relationship should work? Marriage doesn't fix this.

The relationship may even be harder than raising the children.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that was raised in such an environment. I spent most of my 20s really strongly convinced that I should stay in relationships that were not healthy and just “slog it out” because that’s what I had as a template. Somehow the maintenance of the relationship takes priority over the fulfillment of either person, like a failed business contract where both parties are losing money but feel contractually obligated to continue.

I might go even one step further though and say that your first priority has to be to yourself. Of course if you have children you have to take care of them at whatever cost, but if you aren’t taking care of yourself you’ll never be able to take care of them. And if you’re never true to yourself then you won’t be able to make an authentic relationship. Really the entire nuclear family requires such a high level of emotional intelligence that I’m surprised it works out as often as it does.

I wrote this in another comment.

> As I get older, I feel that I have become much more self-aware of problems which appear in my life. While before, they may have been a black-box I push aside, now they are a curiosity I feel compelled to explore.

You somehow have to be aware of problems in your life and willing to explore them. Otherwise you stick to your defaults and deal with them with that severely limited tooling which your life path has handed down to you.

One small nit pick, I believe emotional intelligence was one of the subjects of the replication crisis. Or maybe it didn't even get that far. It seemed to become a thing by a journalist writing a best selling book off work by psychologists who ultimately decided it might actually not be a thing and moved on. I haven't checked the current state in years, but it looked like a dead end, last I checked.

I'm a parent in such a relationship. The reason people take "vows" (the strongest sort of promise you can make) in marriage is so that they stay together and take care of their children. My wife and I are not divorced, we are both involved parents, and remain friends, but we have not had an intimate relationship in about 15 years. Yes I have had my doubts about whether this was the best example to provide to my children but it seems better than any alternative, given the circumstances. In any event, the children are all grown now, so it is what it is.

I think this phrasing is bad. It's not about what's first or second or any other order. It's about balance.

You should prioritize your relationship regularly (e.g. every other week date night). You should prioritize talking to and educating your kids as much as possible. And as someone else mentioned, you're allowed to spend time with yourself, doing whatever productive or unproductive thing you want to do.

But balance is key. And more importantly, communication. All of this breaks down when two people don't talk to each other. Talking is the hardest part because it can feel useful, or useless, or downright infuriating, and etc. Yet, anecdotally, two people in a relationship that actively work to talk to each other are going to enjoy their relationship (more) and probably do a better job raising kids. They'll also more quickly conclude that they shouldn't be together if it comes to that - something that is easy to overlook.

Right, communication is huge. From one of my other comments.

> If you want an eye-opening account of how relationships go bad, take a stroll over to /r/deadbedrooms in Reddit. It doesn't matter if you're 20 or 50, you may see the same patterns in your own relationship.

They cover everything you need to know there, probably much better than anyone here will explain it.

> Imagine raising children in a relationship in which there's no sex and the parents are only together out of a sense of duty.

This is the second time I've seen sex mentioned as one of the primary components of a relationship—and I think it can be, but the idea that that's the only way to have a loving relationship is wrong. Imagine raising children in a relationship without love? That's horrifying. Imagine raising children a relationship without sex? Well, sure, why not?

Sex is an integral part (though not the only one) of most romantic relationships. If it weren't, most people wouldn't be demanding sexual exclusivity from their partners.

Not having sex is fine if that's OK with you. It isn't the only way to a loving relationship. It is shortsighted to think it isn't an important part of one, though, and I'm personally not going to be in another sexless relationship unless it is open to me finding sex outside of the relationship. Otherwise, I'm not staying because that relationship doesn't meet my needs and I'm unhappy.

I can't imagine raising children, honestly, but I especially cannot imagine it while also being extremely unsatisfied in a relationship. Children deserve content parents, if possible.

> Once kids enter the picture, they they are the priority. Not giving up the "authentic life" to give your children the "best life" is pure selfishness. Once you have kids, your life is no longer your own...it's theirs.

This mentality is not only wrong, it's extremely unhealthy. Your personal life doesn't end when you become a parent. Parents shouldn't let their children's lives become the all-consuming center of your universe to the exclusion of all things self.

This mindset is actually extremely unhealthy for both the parents and the children. It's true that you need to provide attention and love and care to children, but you also need to grant them some space and autonomy as they grow older.

Take care of your kids, yes, but take care of yourself too. Everything in life is about balance and moderation. Go too far in any one direction to the neglect of other important things and you're only going to create problems for yourself, no matter how well-intentioned you thought you were.

I don't think any of what you are saying is at odds with GP's comment.

Putting your kids first doesn't mean you can't take care of yourself. You are implying that, but no one else is.

Of course children need a happy and healthy parent to care for them, so your needs are still included in the mix, in case you were worried about that.

The parent of the comment you’re replying to directly states that children come first, the topic is marriage and being in a loving relationship.

I have seen a handful of psychologists which claim that happiness of the parents is quite important to happiness of the children, and throwing yourself on the altar of self-sacrifice could be causing more harm than you think.

If taking care of yourself means not being in a relationship with someone, but you have children, what’s the priority? That’s always going to be a hard question.

Your first sentence is far too dismissive of that. These things are diametrically opposed if they parent of the comment you’re replying to is to be believed.

You can't take care of your kids well if you don't take care of yourself. That being said, if there is only enough for one of you to eat... well, the kid eats first and you get leftovers. Taking care of yourself has to work around the child's needs as well, especially when they are young and simply cannot do for themselves.

There is no way for both parents to be "authentic self" while the kid is small. Whether it is one of them working many hours a day whole the other says home or whether it is both juggling work and parenting.Something gotta give. The time you was being "authentic self", whatever it means, is the time that is now spent supervising toddler.

Sometimes one of partners remains authentic self and keeps all those self things. And it looks cool until you realize their partner is not getting any "me time" at all or help. And that setup is significantly less cool for partner.

Sure, but balancing the needs of multiple people is what a relationship is all about, and the idea that you give up on that entirely to focus solely on your children what's being criticised here. Yes, your children will have needs, and yes, you will need to sacrifice some things to help your children, but that doesn't mean that "your life is no longer your own", any more than the sacrifices you make to form a relationship with a partner.

To be charitable, I think the original post was more making an argument against complete individualism, and I broadly agree with that in principle: if you live in a community, you will have to deal with compromises between what you want and what other people want. But it's dangerous to push things too far the other way: if you are making all the compromises, and getting nothing that you want, then there is something unhealthy about that relationship. Obviously that plays out differently for relationships between adults, and relationships between parents and their children - you can't sit down with a baby and set clear boundaries! But making time for yourself, and organising things so your needs are met is still important.

I'd like to point out that the natural instinct is to take care of the kids first. Doesn't mean don't take care of yourself, but it does mean that they have a hard priority on everything aside from "bare minimum". This does mean there is a threshold for which most kids'need could be ignored aside from necessities (food, sleep). Can definitely pass on even cuddles at time if cuddling the partner, for example (cuddles are very important, but kids steal most of them)

On airplanes, there is a reason you put your oxygen mask on first before your child’s: If you neglect taking care of yourself, your child will suffer, too.

Kids look for role models that have their own dreams, hobbies, ambitions... complete people.

Parents that give up their own lives to obsess over their children are often not the people a child will choose as role models, because they are boring. Kids need to see parents continually trying new things of their own choosing. They need to see them failing, and sometimes succeeding, at pursuing their own goals.

Most kids would be happier with a happy parent living their own authentic life and living in a trailer, than a parent trying too hard to provide for a "nice" home and a "good" school that a kid never asked for.

Statistically, kids growing up in trailers don't do better then kids in nice homes. The stress of such arrangement itself, the financial insecurity is affecting both kids and parents.

And also, imo, kids of parents who obsessed over kids pretty often end up obsessing over own kids. Parenting is one of those things qe tend to copy a lot.

People who obsessed over kids or particular hobby or work are not incomplete. They are whole humans, just that you disaproves their values and choices. Or don't understand their psychology. Even if they are unhappy in their own arrangement, they are still whole people.

Grew up poor, doing well financially now.

It’s true that poverty is self fulfilling but economic success isn’t everything either.

You can be poor and happy (and good).

You can be wealthy and miserable (and immoral).

I’m not saying stress is good or that people should have to struggle, but you make it sound as if misery is a foregone conclusion for those raised in lower socio-economic conditions.

Kids can always take more. There's always something you could be doing to help them, to improve their future prospects, to make them better-adjusted, give them better nutrition, give them some help with making friends or maintaining relationships, et c.

It's absolutely necessary to say "no" to that stuff pretty often. They can be "the priority" as long as that allows that a good deal of the time they actually won't be.

It's also not the case that one must only make that trade-off when there's some Greater Good in it for the kid(s). You don't give up your life because you have kids. The notion that you should is very modern and is still not typical in a ton of (non-US) cultures.

It feels like my 4yo is more at ease with himself and us when I am taking care of myself. This is highly difficult to assess objectively but kids are extremely good at picking up and emotionally inheriting the ambient levels of stress and discomfort.

Other societies, the kids are not first. The parents are, because they work to support and feed the kids.

The best thing you can do for your kids is to have a good happy relationship with your partner.

> Not giving up the "authentic life" to give your children the "best life" is pure selfishness

What do you think the "authentic life" is, and what do you think giving it up means, and why does that benefit the children?

This assumes those two goals are in opposition to each other.

I can think of countless counterexamples to this.

Sure, you want to make sure that you feed your kids, don't ignore them, give them learning experiences and make sure they pay attention at school etc, but IME, weak people just end up being weak people and strong people just end up being strong people and their childhood experience seems to have little to do with it.

If anything, excessively "perfect childhoods" seem to lead to people who can't really deal with any level of adversity because everything is just theirs and always was theirs and always should be theirs. They literally don't know how to deal with it, in the same way that an Australian (generally) doesn't know how to speak German, they need to learn as adults.

Looking at statistics here is silly because you're basically just going to end up with the obvious conclusion that poor people stay poor.

What nation are you in, out of curiosity? No pressure.

Your marriage is the primary model of what a relationship is to your kids.

It needs to be healthy, and it needs to stand up on its own two legs.

Kids know when their parents hate each other. And it adds a ton of pressure and guilt knowing that they're only likely together because it's "better for the kids"

I used to think like that, and would joke that my wife would get pushed under the bus if it meant saving the children. But while the children are absolutely priceless to me, my wife and I together are the foundation for them. IMO, you have to make that relationship a priority (wherever possible) in the interest of your children for the developmental reasons you imply.

> Once kids enter the picture, they they are the priority.

Hard disagree. My SO comes first. Full stop. I can't be a proper role model if me and my SO are not in a good place.

> Once you have kids, your life is no longer your own...it's theirs.

Hard disagree. This just turns them in to Karens.

Mostly agree, but I think using the word "priority" here is unhelpful. Priorities allow you to decide what to do right now, and even for that case, they are often misused.

I think what you really mean is that you shouldn't repeatedly neglect the relationship in favor of other time investments, including kids. Or, perhaps you mean that most people under-invest their time in their relationship and over-invest their time in kids.

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