Thoughts About Marriage

My children's friends are all getting married.

Matt pointed this out to me the last time we talked on Skype.  Kevin, Brandon, the other Brandon, Lyndon, Keith, and now Justin, all happily passed into the land of matrimony.

Amy's cousin Jessi and friend Phebe are also married.  And her Bible school friend Krispie got married yesterday, and her Jamaica co-workers are getting married.

And now the cousins and friends Emily and Ben's ages are dating.  Emily's friend Esta married Matt's friend Justin.

My children find it kind of an odd experience.  Especially when Keith had a child, Matt couldn't quite get his head around the fact that his cousin, who got into numerous insane scrapes with him, was a DAD.

Emily, who doesn't approach things subtly, sees it as a fine information-gathering opportunity, asking her cousin,  "So, I see you were holding hands this evening.  How did you decide that?  I mean, did you talk about it, or did it just sort of happen?"

I think about this now and then, that my children aren't getting married like other people's.  Not obsessively, let me emphasize, but in that grand-scheme-of-things way that you do at 50, when you realize that you and your children are actually part of sweeping trends and patterns of society.

We skipped out on a lot of Sweeping Trends in the past.  Mom never got into Women's Lib,  a few of us actually waited for marriage in the carefree pre-AIDS era, and we had a lot more than 1.2 children.


But now I look back and realize that at least some of the trends and statistics applied to us.  My high school class of 29 came almost entirely from intact families with married parents.  My classmates started getting married soon after high school.

Now, I go back and many of those classmates who were married then are divorced now.  Their children are in a variety of living arrangements.  Their grandchildren are few, and often don't have married parents.

Just like all the statistics you read.

My Christian/Mennonite friends and relatives mostly married young.  It was just what people did, the normal pattern, but it was considered a bit proletariat for the ones who saw themselves as more intellectual , and it portrayed a certain flair and independence if you weren't all into getting married and sort of slid into it later, yawning just a bit, like, well ok, but I could be happy single, just so you know.

While I was teaching school and living with Noah and Fannie, a wonderful old Amish couple, my friend "David" took my other friend "Sadie" on a date which of course portended many more to come, then marriage.  Fannie thought David was a better man than his brothers because, "Aeh macht sich room."  That is, he takes action.

I thought, "Dumb and Backwards."

And now it's 2013.  Fannie had a point.

It is a good thing for society and for the church, in a large overall sense, when young people commit to each other in marriage and have babies and raise them in a solid, stable environment.


If you read much in both secular and Christian media, you'll note the slightly-alarmed articles and blog posts about the decline of marriage.  Young men are playing video games in their mom's basements instead of taking initiative and getting on with their lives.  Young women are holding out for perfection. Christian parents expect young people to stay chaste until marriage but also to delay marriage until their careers are established.  Guys can't find the right girls.  Women don't feel like the good guys exist, or if they do, they aren't pursuing.  All are frustrated.


Meanwhile, I have conversations with my adult children and find that sometimes the slightly-anguished articles on Boundless fit their situations exactly.

Not that they're sitting in corners pining. As a friend told me that her children said of us, "The Smuckers seem like the type that don't get married until later in life because they're too busy having fun."  And I know it will probably all work out just fine when the time is right.

But still, I think mine would be ready if the right one appeared.

And I wonder why so many young people find this part of their lives so discouragingly difficult.

I've heard a single adult say, "It makes me wonder if something is fundamentally flawed about me."

A legitimate question, and yet as my grandma used to say, "Sis ken heffly so grum us muh net un deckel finna kann."  Or, There's no pot so crooked you can't find a lid for it.


I recently brought up the subject in a Facebook chat with a cousin whose children are the ages of mine and also unattached.  It was soon evident that we could have a long conversation.  It can be a painful subject, especially when the journey for our kids is pot-holed with disappointments.

My cousin said, "I just pray and pray for the children... and their future mates!! believe me someone is getting prayed for constantly... who those people are I have no idea!!"

I wrote back, "Laughing and saying AMEN."

She said she has two friends in a similar situation.  I could also think of at least two mom-friends who have talked to me about this.  Among the six of us we have probably 45 children.

I had a thought.

Surely you know what whoopie pies are.  Those Amish cakey-soft-chocolate cookies put together sandwich-style with a gooey white filling in the middle.

When I bake whoopie pies I am not very picky about blopping them on the cookie sheet and they end up in all shapes and sizes.  So I match them up carefully before I add the frosting.  Ok, small and round with small and round, medium oval with medium oval, large and lumpy with another large and lumpy.

I always feel like a matchmaker and hope they'll be happy together.

So.  Maybe all of us moms should get together and bake whoopie pies.  So to speak.  We could make a list of eligible young people and match up personality types, education, interests, and plans.  Ok, yours and mine are second cousins, so that won't work, and Carol's Sam wants to be a missionary in the Congo and Emily would never make it with her health issues, but we could put Emily with Arlene's Kevin who doesn't talk much but likes to read and listen, and Matt with Sandra's Katie because she's practical but smart enough to understand his work, and maybe Sam with Amy because she's tough enough for the jungle.

Then we'd go home with our lists and they would all friend each other on Facebook and start chatting and it would all work out wonderfully and they would be so relieved to have the prep work done for them.

Others have explored variations of this idea before, like millions of people in India whose families arrange their marriages, and Isaac and Rebekah, and also Shari had some related thoughts over at Confessions of a Woman Learning to Live, here and here, and so did my third cousin once removed Merle Yoder at Find Me On the Road Less Traveled.

In the Christian world, we've tried dating and I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and courtship and Real Courtship that bordered on semi-arranged marriages, and some of these seem to have worked and some did not.

The current system, whatever it is, works for some but not for others.

What do you think?  Is it time for us moms to get out our KitchenAids and aprons and Hershey's Baking Cocoa?


Or should we just be like ice cubes and chill?

[P.S. Claification: I try not to pressure my children because so much of this is out of their control.  I take my cues from them: if they're content, So am I.  But if they're struggling, I can't help but struggle with them. And want to fix it.]

Quote of the Day:
"Mom still uses words like 'peeps' and 'chill,' that were popular on Xanga ten years ago, and she doesn't seem to know they're not cool any more."
--Emily