Happy Anniversary

Today Darin and I are celebrating 19 years of marriage.  We're celebrating in our favorite way - being home together with our family.  Darin took the day off and we've treated this day as a mostly normal Tuesday.  The three oldest worked on their schoolwork this morning while I prepared for the science co-op class that I teach on Thursdays.  While we were doing that, Darin hung out with Henry, Sophia and Grace.  We ate leftover chili for lunch, and then went out for an anniversary drink at Starbucks. 

While we were at Starbucks, Sophia threw up.  Thank God we were sitting on the outdoor patio!  Sophia seems to be our "throw-up girl."  I think she has thrown up more times than all the rest of the kids combined, God bless her.  And me.  And Darin!  ;-)  Darin and I have our routine set in stone when it comes to throw-up.  I do the clean-up of the actual puke while Darin cleans up the kid.  Darin does not respond well to the Technicolor Yawn.  I struggle with the moldy dishes Darin brings home from work.  It totally grosses me out!  So Darin handles that for me. 

I think of all the moldy dishes, and puke, and stinky diapers, moves, tricky financial issues, dreams left behind and new dreams brought to life, and I can't imagine going through it with anyone but Darin.  So many times over the years we have recounted how we met and all the little details that had to come about for us to meet when we did.  We could have never accomplished it on our own!  I mean, come on.  We have a hard enough time getting our little family out the door to church on Sundays!  In honor of our anniversary this year - especially because we are now working on year TWENTY! I am going to dig deep and see if I can find some pictures from when we first met and married and tell the story of how we met.  Stay tuned!  :-)

Flabby Mama

As I was walking out of Target today, there was a woman ahead of me walking out with her son.  She was probably in her 40's.  She was also probably not in the same shape she was in when she first met her husband - kinda like me.  ;-)  But I couldn't help thinking, "Her husband loves her just the way she is.  Her husband loves her BECAUSE of the way she is."

I can't help thinking thoughts like those because my husband does such a good job of loving me just the way I am - because of the way I am.  When I first started feeling insecure about my flabby arms and thighs, there was Darin, reassuring me, and doing such a great job of it that whenever I see another woman with flabby arms and thighs, I think about how her husband loves her. 

Sigh.  God is good.

Father's Bedtime Song

My husband and I laughed so hard at this YouTube Video.  We can relate in so many ways!  ;-)  Enjoy.

 

No Gene for Divorce

Good news.  The research is in, and there is officially no gene that causes divorce.  Whew!

Family Quote of the Week: No Gene for Divorce

"The propensity toward divorce does not lie mainly in the genes, new research suggests.

An Australian study of twins and their grown children finds that family history plays a key role, however. Adults whose own parents had split had nearly twice the risk of going through a divorce themselves, the researchers found.

But there is no "gene" for divorce, so to speak, said lead researcher Brian M. D'Onofrio, an Indiana University psychologist. "Genetic factors that influence both generations do not [significantly] account for that increased risk," he said.

The findings are published in the August issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family."

(Source:  Carolyn Colwell, "Family, More Than Genes, Helps Drive Divorce," HealthDay, July 20, 2007; http://www.healthday.com .)

I subscribe to a newsletter that is sent out by The World Congress of Families.  Check out their website HERE.

The newsletter goes further on to discuss studies on murder rates and how divorce has been found to be a huge influence in the rates for murder.  Read on....

Criminologists have long believed that murder rates will climb when the number of young people grows, especially in areas where unemployment runs high and urban populations are growing.  However, a new study by Rutgers sociologist Julie A. Phillips suggests that the homicide rate may track less closely than previously thought with the size of population centers or with the number or employment status of the young people.  But one all-too-certain portent of murder remains: namely, divorce.

Examining county-by-county data collected between 1970 and 1999, Phillips uncovers a pattern that contradicts rather than confirms conventional wisdom among criminologists. In analyses that she calls "intriguing," Phillips shows that the statistical relationships between homicide rates on the one hand and unemployment and population size on the other are both negative, so manifesting "effects that run contrary to common theoretical expectations."  

As most criminologists would expect, Phillips does discern "a positive association between the proportion [of] young [in various areas] and homicide rates within U.S. counties across time."  But Phillips's multi-variable analysis establishes that "criminogenic forces, such as poor social conditions..., can alter the association between the relative size of the young population and homicide rates."  

One particular social measure especially helps Phillips recognize areas with the kind of  "low social control" that looses murderous impulses, even if those impulses are "less heavily concentrated in the young age ranges" in the affected areas than some theorists might have expected.  The indicator of social breakdown that Phillips highlights as a predictor of murder is the divorce rate.  

Unlike elevated unemployment rates and burgeoning population size-both surprisingly linked to lower homicide rates-high divorce rates do augur bloodshed.  In four out of five of Phillips's statistical models, the county divorce rate emerges as a statistically significant predictor of the homicide rate (p < 0.05 in all four models).  "On average," Phillips accordingly observes, "higher levels of the percentage of the population divorced are associated with larger homicide rates within counties over time."  

County coroners, it appears, will often be called on for grim duties wherever the divorce courts are busy.

(Source: Julie A. Phillips, "The Relationship Between Age Structure and Homicide Rates in the United States, 1970 to 1999," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 43 [2006]: 230-260.)