Adding Kids to the Mix

Over the last several weeks I have discussed the hardships and challenges within marriage. One major challenge that greatly affects marriages is adding kids to the mix.

Children turn life up-side-down. With simply referring to the transition alone, having children means entering a world of new things. Even if the parents have a lot of experience with children, having your own is a totally new experience. They never turn off. They are always there. Especially as newborns, they always need something and for the first few years they can’t actually tell you as the parent what they need. When they are hungry, they cry. When they are tired, they cry. When they need a diaper change, they cry. When they are hot, they cry. For years they depend on mommy and daddy for not only every single need, but actually anticipating every single need all day and all night. And if they don’t cry for any one of those things, as a parent, you start to worry and wonder, “Are they okay? Are they sick? Are they starving? What is going on with this little baby that I love and that cannot tell me exactly what they need?”

Then, when you finally feel like you have it all figured out and you feel ready to have another kid, that kid comes and changes all the rules. They have their own needs, their own personalities, their own frustrations and their own everything. And suddenly you feel like a total amateur all over again.

While discussing with the many new and much more experienced parents within my immediate family, I asked a few questions about their transitions to and through parenthood. Although their situations are all unique, and their parenting strategies are all very different, there were a few things they all had in common. It seemed that all of them felt that in order to have success within their new found family dynamics, they have to abide by specific rules that could always be constants, no matter how many additions, or what additions to the family came their way.

Without my siblings realizing it, they explained the exact four principles that Richard B.  Miller, Director of the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University explains should be guiding principles within the family. They include

1. Parents are the leaders of the family.
2. Parents must be united in their leadership.
3. The parent-child hierarchy dissolves when children become adults.
4. The marital relationship should be a partnership.

All of the members in my family are great parents. They all do parenting very differently, but each one of them independently feel that the easiest and most natural change in their transition to parenthood was loving that new little baby no matter the sacrifice or challenge that came with him/her. They all have these overarching principles guiding them through the challenges that come with the greatest responsibility they will ever have.