Honestly, I don't see this as a bad thing. Those who want kids will always be free to have them, but it should be only those who really want them. Hopefully people feel less pressured to move into situations such as marriage and kids that aren't what they want or are ready for. I think this is an area where Europe is way ahead of the US in social development.
Yeah I agree with that, the majority of arguments start with the wife shouting at the husband that he doesn't do enough housework. It might have worked OK back in the day when a bloke went out and did a hard (well, not always hard ) days work to get moneh, and the woman stayed at home to keep the house. But now since women and men usually have similar paying jobs, it's just unfair to make one half of the couple to all the work. I like to think me and my girlfriend usually take equal shares in housework, but there are just some jobs I despise doing, she still moans at me when I don't do the washing, even though I do all of the cooking. But then some women just like to moan about every tiny little thing, unfortueately I got one of those
It's very telling that the article discusses co-habitation like it's a "baaaad thing". Over here, it's an accepted norm - most people (I would say) live together for a time before getting married. It makes sense, after all. I've known people who were great together while living apart, but couldn't stand each other when they moved in together. If they'd have got married before moving in together, they'd have just been another divorce statistic. As for children being way down the list of married people's priorities - the whole idea of marriage for procreation is one that went out in the 1950's - at least so I thought.
It is nice to know that we moved on a little bit from the stauch Catholic values of "go forth and multiply" (after all, the rich need more fodder for the coal mines and work houses). And this is where I strongly disagree. I like to think that being in a committed relationship demands quite a bit of both partners in terms of dependability, maturity, stability and compromise/sacrifice. And having children, in my experience, has just as much to do with the fulfillment of parents' needs: the projection of their desires and vicariously living out their own unfulfilled dreams through the child, as with those noble values mentioned above. Not so far removed from old-fashioned values then. As long as the poor keep popping out labourers and servants, the Church does not care what childhood they have or how they are fed and raised.
