208 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
on people’s overall happiness. And as it turns out, it’s a small,
negative impact at that. (Although it is apparently less of a nega-
tive for moms than for dads.)
The comforting counterpoint to these disconcerting studies is
this: children may not make us all that happy all that often—but
when they do, the happiness is both transcendent and amnesic.
It seems that children as a whole require so much of their parent’s
energy and resources that other sources of personal gratification
tend to all but fade away. Fortunately, society seems to have
ingrained in our psyches the unquestionable (and unquestioning)
perceived truism that “our children are our greatest joy.” But, this
may be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since when you
invest such a huge part of yourself (both time and money-wise)
into one singular source of joy... then you tend to rationalize
these costs and conclude that our children must be repaying us
with happiness—so it is bound to be exceptional.
No matter how you conduct the overall cost/benefit analysis of
being a parent, there is no denying that the hard-wired biological
drive for motherhood is huge for women. Sixty percent of women
in their thirties have responded to surveys by stating that having
children was their very top priority in life.
Some premarital agenda items. Whether you decide to re-marry or
not hinges on numerous factors, not the least of which are the legal
and financial plusses and minuses of entering into an officially sanc-
tioned marriage versus simply “shacking up” and living together
out of wedlock. I will list some of the various pros and cons at the
end of this section, but law and economics aside, the “verge of re-
marriage” juncture should be a logical time to verbalize, hash out,
and hopefully reach agreement on, some of the crucial premarital
agenda items that you may have naïvely or inadvertently failed to
sufficiently discuss with your spouse the first time around.
Listed below are some of those key Premarital Agenda Items.
(Author’s Note: Even though this list may come a bit late for some
of my readers, it is also a good list for your “first-timer” friends
and relatives as well.) (1) Kids: Do you want them or not? Do you
have similar child rearing philosophies? Private vs. public school?
How will you provide for your children’s education? (2) Wealth
Accumulation: Are you a spender or a saver? What is your basic