Marriage in America

[teatimefor2]

I thought this article on marriage in America was very interesting.  It highlights some points that I feel are already widely known, such as marriage and successful marriages, are higher amongst the college educated and that women are out-earning and educating their spouses.  

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/how-to-save-marriage-in-america/283732/

I thought the three different types of marriage were interesting and since it was kid-focused by reasoning to post it on MMM rather than MM.  

I feel that we are a mix of all three, especially given the fact that my DH is the breadwinner and I'm a SAHM, but that's just a temporary decision while we have young children. We, actually, had a lot of the romantic characteristic that we had pre-baby and are try to maintain.  We don't have a family doodle calendar, but I'm not going to rule one out either!

[waterchurch]

We're very traditional marriage, I suppose. No sex before we were married, I stay home, etc. But some of the other descriptions fit us too.

[zarapipe]

I feel like we're a bit of all three.

[Deleted]

We are HIP but on the lower income end of things. ( combined HHI of less than 110,000 outside of Boston).

We both work, all of our energy outside of work goes into engaging with our kid, we like Netflix, when things are bad we stick it out so DS has a stable nurturing family.

[IrishBelle]

Mostly HIP with some traditional and romantic aspects.

[Deleted]

HIP, but slackers about it.

[drloretta]

We're a blend of HIP and traditional

[turtlegirl]

I think we are a pretty even mix of traditional and romantic.

[undecidedowl]

We are definitely HIP. The only thing we did different was not delaying marriage and kid (I was 22 and 24). I feel like I get a lot of judgement from all of the other HIP & Romantic type people about that, not so much the Traditionals.

[rex]

HIP, with the element of traditional that i sah and h works. however, i'm only sah because my chosen career pays shit and i live in MA where childcare costs a small fortune. it is not permanent.

[gibbinator]

Hip for sure, although dh by far out earns me.

[dcrunnergirl52]

HIP definitely.

[deo]

We are a combo. Traditional because I'm a SAHM and he is the breadwinner and I do most of the parenting but I'd also say we are HIP because all the other descriptions in that category sounded like us.

[fbf2006]

Predominantly HIP but did wait till marriage to have sex.

[galaxy8227]

Feb 15, 2014 19:24:02 GMT -5 @this said:

HIP almost to point of being a stereotype. lol

Same here

[fortmyersbride]

Probably 70/30 HIP and Romantic

[h]

Mostly HIP right now, but we still have aspects of our former romantic selves.

Is anyone else fascinated by the graph titled Parents' Time Use in 1965 and 2011? It has mothers in 2011 doing an average of 21 hours of paid work, 18 hours of housework, and 14 hours of childcare each week. That's a lot fewer hours of work and parenting total than I would have guessed (53 hours a week for all three combined, which leaves a lot more leisure time than most parents I know seem to have). It also seems high on housework and low on childcare to me. I do 50+ hours of childcare a week easy, and that's with kids in school and working part-time. The average for dads is only 7 hours a week of childcare. That's nothing.

[MadamePresident]

We are Traditional. I'm pretty happy with that and it works for us.

I do think the categories are kind of weird though. Like why can't traditional couples binge watch Netflix? Why does having kids make you no longer romantic? You can't be organized unless your HIP?

[jessnpaul]

We are so HIP its frightening!

I literally laughed out loud about the Google Calendar because that is said around here on practically an hourly basis!

[savan]

Feb 15, 2014 21:04:47 GMT -5 h said:

Mostly HIP right now, but we still have aspects of our former romantic selves.

Is anyone else fascinated by the graph titled Parents' Time Use in 1965 and 2011? It has mothers in 2011 doing an average of 21 hours of paid work, 18 hours of housework, and 14 hours of childcare each week. That's a lot fewer hours of work and parenting total than I would have guessed (53 hours a week for all three combined, which leaves a lot more leisure time than most parents I know seem to have). It also seems high on housework and low on childcare to me. I do 50+ hours of childcare a week easy, and that's with kids in school and working part-time. The average for dads is only 7 hours a week of childcare. That's nothing.

Yeah, I showed that graph to DH and commented that his average weekly hours of childcare had risen from 2.5 to a whopping 7.  Then he noted how much less housework I have to do now and said we should call it even.

[meltoine]

I really don't know how to categorize our marriage. At first I wanted to say traditional, as we are religious, I SAH mostly, and I was young when we married (though H was average for guys, he's just a fair bit older than I). But we are romantic in that our relationship with each other comes before our relationships with the kids. Like the article says, we believe that a strong marriage is good for our kids, so we focus more on that.

On the other hand, part of our religious beliefs is that one of the two primary ends of marriage is the rearing of children (the other being to get your spouse to heaven). I guess if you look at that at face value, without the religious underpinning, it's HIP. But because it stems from our religion, is it traditional? HELP lol

[sookie]

We're mixed between HIP and traditional with HIP just slightly edging out traditional. I chose the last option to vote.

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2014 19:41:02 GMT -5 galaxy8227 said:

Feb 15, 2014 19:24:02 GMT -5 @this said:

HIP almost to point of being a stereotype. lol

Same here

@this Us too. It's kind of laughable. 

The only element of Traditional was that we both like to cook, so "pot roast in the oven" fits us. 

[mcfelix]

We are definitely HIP, with a little romantic. However since we only have a baby (as in too young to have lots of kid activities), the romantic elements are less now than prebaby. We still go out for brunch every weekend though!

[Marmee]

"Affluent HIP". Lol...basically HIP but I am SAH while we have young kids.

[SpartanGirl]

I'd say we identify with HIP except that I stay at home.

[mandapanda18]

We are def in the HIP category! We got married fairly young I was 22, H 23 but we had both graduated college. I went back for my masters at night, we bought a house and had our son 7 years after being married! I by out earn H by nearly $50k but it us based on our chosen professions, nothing else. The money is "our" money regardless and we work things out rather than fight and give up on each other. Everything we do now is for our son.

[petitefrite]

We are HIP so much that it almost seems like someone came into our house and took notes on our marriage and then put it into a spread sheet.

[livinitup]

HIP signing in. This was really enlightening for me. I've never been able to articulate how I feel like couples/families like ours have moved on from "traditional" but into this 'no one has a name for it place'. "Modern" seemed too vague. I am very focused on family and raising my DD but also have a career and solid partnership with my DH. Nice to finally see it with a name.

And it's blowing my mind a little to think that my parents began as traditional ( married late '60's) but my mom with her nursing degree/career and dad with highly-involved parenting really became HIP in the '80s/90's.

[katie4253]

We are HIP. We got married young, though. 23 and 24, but we were married for 7 years before we had our child.