Did your parents have a happy marriage? If they didn't, are you screwed? Too many of us are beginning on the backfoot, and I wonder, what hope is there, if any?
There is no such thing as a "normal" marriage. There is nothing to suggest marriage is "normal" either. Marriage may be a personal goal held in high esteem by a majority of people, including people who aren't actually able to legally obtain that goal. But marriage is not the same thing to everyone, and not everyone will marry.
To those who have, or are about to, or hope they will, I ask again; did your parents have a happy marriage? Indeed, were your parents married?
I ask, because we know that the kind of relationship our parents, or those adult people who we spent most time with as children – our caregivers – greatly inform our expectations about love, sex, dating and romance.
We can comfortably say this is so because, in 2002, the development of the early adult romantic relationships (DEARR) model was published. This is a model that gives voice to the notion that context, and individual differences, influences a person's relationship success, either positively or negatively. The model has been greatly tested and empirically supported since then.
Indeed, recent research, published in the journal Personal Relationships, went some way to showing just how influential those early role models are. Over 260 participants and their romantic partners participated in a longitudinal, and multi-method study that spanned their transition from adolescence to adulthood, and tracked their relationship success. In short, those who experienced positive parenting – “high in warmth and supportiveness, high in levels of child monitoring and positive child-management, and low in levels of harsh and inconsistent discipline in adolescence” – had better marital expectations. That is to say, they saw marriage in a positive light, and as something that required emotional investment and “work”. So, they were more likely to be positively rewarded through marriage.
The study also accounted for personality factors. It found that “negative emotionality” predicted “relationship maladjustment”. For example, “higher levels of neuroticism in adolescence were associated with less endorsement of the belief that marriage will lead to more life fulfillment and happiness in early adulthood.” Possibly an unsurprising result, given general acceptance of the idea those with a half-empty view of the world are less likely to be satisfied. Grim? You bet.
But what if you're someone who didn't benefit from positive parenting as a teen? What if you're the child of divorce? What if you grew up in a single-parent household? Or a foster home? Or what if you are someone who just sees the world in a downwards fashion, while others are always up, up, irritatingly up? Does that mean you're doomed to live a life of romantic misery and personal relationship failure?
Here's where the research falls down. It only considered people from America's rock-solid Mid-West, and people from two-parent, married households. Narrow? Yes. Especially when you consider how different life for the majority might be here, in Australia. The Bureau of Statistics estimates 14.7 per cent of all Australian births in 1983 were ex-nuptial, compared to 24 per cent a decade later and 34 per cent at last count in 2011. So more children are being born out of wedlock every year – the married family model is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Similarly, the proportion of families that comprise just one parent and children has increased from 6.5 per cent in 1976 to nearly double, 10.6 per cent, at last count.
Not to mention the number of same-sex families with children has increased, to the point the Australian Institute of Family Studies found it necessary to produce a literary summary of current research on the subject. It's basic point? Same-sex parenting appears to be fine. Specifically: “Most studies suggest that children raised by lesbian parents do at least as well as their peers with heterosexual parents when compared on a range of social, psychological and educational variables. Only a few studies overseas have included children of gay men. No comparative research of this kind has been conducted in Australia or New Zealand.” Interesting. A bit "no-sh*t", love is love is love. But I digress.
Point is, we are shaped greatly by our early experiences. We expect relationships to be a certain way depending on how we were raised. This is partly why it helps to partner up with someone from a similar background to you. But could this also partly suggest people, like me, who come from broken families, are more likely to break their relationships? Can you overcome your past when it comes to building your future?
I believe you can. Clearly, there needs to be more research commissioned, but I believe that you can learn how to do things better, even if you mostly saw things bad before. We may be informed by the experiences we have as youths, but we aren't defined by them. In the same way, we may be burned by a bad break-up, but that doesn't mean we're forever broken. Nature has a wonderful ability to start over. Renew and refresh – that's the way life works, and that's the way our lives can work – if only we let them.
Right?
Katherine Feeney is a journalist with the Nine Network Australia.
Email: katherine.f.feeney@gmail.com
Twitter: @katherinefeeney
