Monday, August 26, 2013

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of August 18, 2013

1. Relationship Footprint [Visual], Fatherhood Channel
How deep is your relationship footprint? [Click on visual]

2. Money To Matrimony: Talking About The Black Experience, National Public Radio
[T]hey make their own money, they live their own life, they own their own home. They don't necessarily see where you need a man for that, but what they do need a man for is for the companionship, for the partnership, for the fact that they might want a family. So that was an interesting aspect of the survey to me.

3. Has Marriage Gotten Too Expensive?, The Washington Post
“They found that as the American workforce and the American marriage have destabilized over the past half-century, marriage has become an increasingly inaccessible option for working-class Americans. . ."

4. The Soft Break-Up, Sliding vs. Deciding
As is so often the case, technology brings a vast number of options but this also makes choices more important (and more difficult). Friends are great to have, but a gallery of past loves is a pretty complicated audience for a new stage of life.

5. Marriage Advice: If You Remarry, Make Sure It Is For The Right Reason -- Love, News-Sentinel
Marrying to escape a bad situation or a boring life is “a terrible basis for marriage.” The Parrotts describe this as “perhaps the most damaging motivation for remarriage.” Strong marriages are based on loving bonds that pull people together, not on an effort to escape something else.

6. HRC Marriage and Children, Healthy Relationships California
“[I]ncreasing marital stability to the same level as in 1980 is associated with a decline of nearly one- half million children suspended from school, about two hundred thousand fewer children engaging in delinquency or violence, a quarter of a million fewer children receiving therapy, about a quarter of a million fewer smokers, about 80,000 fewer children thinking about suicide, and about 28,000 fewer children attempting suicide.”

7. Is Marriage Becoming A Status Symbol in America, The Week
Their findings suggest that instead of a major moral or cultural shift (like growing acceptance of unmarried couples living together), it might be a general lack of job security that is the big dissuader. Today, there are fewer stable, well-paying jobs for those without a college degree than in the past — take manufacturing or union jobs, for an example. 

For more, see here.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of August 11, 2013

1. I Do ... Cost a Lot: Weddings By The Numbers, CNN
$28,427: Average cost of a wedding in the United States in 2012, according to data from the 2013 Real Weddings Survey by TheKnot.com of 75,000 brides.

2. Marriage Is the New Middle-Class Luxury Item, Slate
Many of the working-class Americans interviewed by Silva and Corse are now too concerned with maintaining their “own survival” to “imagine being able to provide materially and emotionally for others.”

3. Marriage Beyond Reach of Many Working-class Americans, MyFoxWasau
Job insecurity and uncertainty about the future may be a key part of what's keeping many working-class Americans from getting or staying married, a new study suggests.

4. Family And Religion Play A Critical Role In Economic Mobility, Business Insider
"For instance, high upward mobility areas tend to have higher fractions of religious individuals and fewer children raised by single parents," the researchers write. "Each of these correlations remained strong even after controlling for measures of tax expenditures."

5. 'Hookup Culture' Isn't Real, The Atlantic Wire
77 percent of today's students said they had a regular partner or spouse, while 85 percent said the same in the earlier generation. Monto attributes this slight decline to the "change in age of marriage."

6. Your Siblings Are Saving Your Marriage, Slate
While the difference between being an only child and one kid out of two or three is not enormous, says study co-author Doug Downey, “when you compare children from large families to those with only one child, there is a meaningful gap in the probability of divorce.”

7. The Goal, Children's Hope for Family Act
Recent studies offer conclusive evidence that about one third of couples entering the divorce process report an interest in reconciliation.

For more, see here.

Monday, August 12, 2013

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of August 4, 2013

1. What are the Secrets to a Happy Life?, University of California, Berkeley
In short, it was a history of warm intimate relationships—and the ability to foster them in maturity—that predicted flourishing in all aspects of these men’s lives.

2. Mom Wants You Married? So Does the State, The New York Times
But in South Korea, fretful about plummeting birthrates but still tied to conservative ideas about matchmaking, solving the difficulties of the lovelorn has become something of a national priority.

3. Slicing ‘Breadwinner Moms’ Headlines, Charlotte Observer
Or, how different the reaction if the pitch had been that 25 percent of households with children under 18 are supported by a single mother. . . Especially considering that in these single-mother homes, the median income is $23,000 and that 44 percent are never-married moms.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/07/31/4204208/slicing-breadwinner-moms-headlines.html#storylink=cpy

4. Marriage and Minorities, The New York Times
“Unmarried couples in which the father has been incarcerated are 37 percent less likely to be married one year after the child’s birth than similar couples in which the father has never been incarcerated.”

5. Most in U.S. Want Marriage, but Its Importance Has Dropped, Gallup Economy
Although most Americans are married or would like to get married, less than two-thirds consider it very or somewhat important for a couple to marry if the two want to spend the rest of their lives together or when they want to have a child together. 

6. One in Three U. S. Youths Report Being Victims of Dating Violence, Science Daily
"Both boys and girls who engaged in high rates of bullying toward other students at the start of the study were seven times more likely to report being physically violent in dating relationships four years later."

Korea’s government-funded dating
7. Hiller Law Discusses Marriage Boosters with Good Morning America, PR.com
Korea’s government-funded dating
Korea’s government-funded dating
Korea’s government-funded dating
Korea’s government-funded dating
“We want marriages to last. I encourage all couples to create agreements that include a plan to learn and maintain relationship skills,” said Hiller. “I am delighted when clients call and tell me the postnuptial agreement we created saved their marriage. . ."

For more, see here.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of July 28, 2013

1. In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters, The New York Times
“Where you grow up matters,” said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the study’s authors. “There is tremendous variation across the U.S. in the extent to which kids can rise out of poverty.”

One reader's analysis: What Do These Maps Prove? Not What You Might Think

2. Marriage May Calm a Criminal Impulse in Men, Pacific Standard
[T]he men who divorced from their wives had an increase of 18 percent in their conviction rate from before the divorce, and the men who stayed married had a decrease of 80 percent in their conviction rate.

3. The Good Dad: The Transformative Power of Fatherhood for Men and Children, The Heritage Foundation
Drawing on his new book, Gender and Parenthood: Biological and Social Scientific Perspectives (Columbia, 2013), W. Bradford Wilcox will detail the ways in which fatherhood is a transformative experience for men, both biologically and socially.

4. Traditional Fatherhood Still Essential, The American Spectator
Fathers generally have firmer discipline tactics than mothers, and are more likely to encourage their children to embrace challenges. Boys with engaged fathers are less likely to be violent or delinquent, while girls are less likely to become sexually active or pregnant while teenagers.

5. Expert: Decline of Marriage Leads to Bad Outcomes for Children, Adults, The Washington Free Beacon
Men in residential marriages, on average, have lower levels of testosterone—which in high amounts is linked to aggression and infidelity—earn more than their counterparts without children, and are less likely to be depressed.

6. 4 Reasons Being Happily Married Could Make You A Better CEO, Forbes
In fact, researchers. . . found that non-married women have a 50% higher mortality rate than married women while non-married men have a remarkable 250% higher mortality rate than married men.

7. The Four Things That Kill a Relationship Stone Dead, PsychBlog
Amongst the factors he identified, four have stood out, time and time again. When Gottman sees a couple's communication overrun with these, the chances are they will divorce in an average of around six years from their marriage.

For more, see here.