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Strollerderby
They say children of divorce are more likely to have marriages themselves that don’t last. So we shouldn’t be surprised at the news that Al and Tipper Gore’s eldest is on the outs with her husband.
The Huffington Post reports that Karenna Gore Schiff, 36, and her husband Andrew Schiff, 44, have separated. The couple have three young children.
The time-line of events, however, makes you wonder which couple, if any, influenced the other. Continue reading »
Love and marriage. Sinatra said they go together like a horse and carriage. But horses, by nature, are wild animals. It’s only when we break them of their free spirit that they’re willing to hitch themselves. Is the same true of us humans? Do we really want to be hitched?
The Gore breakup has inspired Americans to really examine the nature of love and marriage. People wonder, “If they can’t last, who can?” I think the question, in their case, is not so much whether or not their relationship could have lasted. They seem like a perfectly lovely couple who made a decision not to last. We may have to get comfortable with the idea of Mom and Dad or Grandpa and Grandma splitting up, because divorce experts say Baby Boomers opting for late-stage separations will be on the rise in the upcoming years. Continue reading »
News that Al and Tipper Gore were splitting up after 40 years of marriage blew up the Internet yesterday. In a carefully worded email sent to friends, and forwarded to the press, the couple announced that “after a great deal of thought we have decided to separate. This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together, following a process of long and careful consideration.”
Mutual for whom? Al and Tipper didn’t consult us. We should have been consulted! And what is a “mutually supportive” break-up, anyway? She’ll kick in for his bachelor pad if he’ll keep her on his health insurance?
Do you feel the sadness, the confusion, the anger? Along with the rest of the Web, we’re in something of a Kubler-Ross freefall — somewhere between Stage 2 (Anger) and Stage 3 (Bargaining). How could they?
We expected Al and Tipper to stay together forever, making out like teenagers on the world’s stage and proving to the rest of us that when the kids are grown, and the soul-sucking jobs are in the past, romance can — and will — endure. Al and Tipper made it past the hard stuff. Why, then, why are they giving up now? Continue reading »
A new study out today, reported on at Motherlode, reveals that couples who lose a baby are more likely to divorce than those who don’t.
As Dr. Louis Gamino, co-author of “When Your Baby Dies,” says in that article, “The last thing a couple wants to hear after a loss is that they might lose their marriage, too.”
I don’t know one other parent who would say having kids was unalloyed wonderfulness for their marriage. Lack of sleep, lack of free time, money worries, and simply the drudgery of doing for someone else all day long often doesn’t leave much for the other grownup in the house. Add to that the powerful emotional attachment we have to our children and even the happiest couples show some strain.
We’ve all got different ways to deal with this, like date nights, “pretend” date nights after the kids are down (good for the broke), or calling each other at work to have uninterrupted conversation. According to Episcopal priest and family coach David Code, you’d better do more of that or you’re doing yourselves –and your kids — a disservice.
Continue reading »
A recent post about a single mother soldier who refused deployment to care for her son has spurred a lively debate about what limits and protections, if any, should be afforded to mothers in the military.
While some commentators are arguing that women have no place in the army whatsoever, others are arguing that no soldier deserves special treatment and that women who “shirk their responsibilities make things harder for those who are trying to receive equal treatment.” Continue reading »
Oh to be rich and not have to exert yourself on actually being, you know, a parent. You can always hire a parenting “coordinator” for $375 an hour and call yourself Anne Heche!
That’s the figure hopping around the net at the moment (I found it on SoSo Juicy, then our own Brett Singer wrote about it over at ParentDish), one apparently court-ordered, so I suppose we aren’t to blame Heche and her soon-t0-be ex.
And although they’re eminently fun to mock, this parenting coordinator gig sound fascinating. So I had to find out just what they’re there to do . . . and it sounds rather . . . wait for it . . . reasonable. Continue reading »
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