Money, Money, Money - Family economics

We've talked a lot about the impact of healthy marriages on people, but they also have a huge impact on the economy and economic well-being of families. We recently encountered a study that details just how big an impact, and for how long the connection has been known. It's super-long, super-detailed, and cites several dozen earlier studies. We've pulled some highlights for the impatient:

• Multiple studies show that married men have 20-30% higher income than their single peers, with the effect strongest for low-income and at-risk demographics.
• A stay-at-home mom has such a strong economic impact on the family that she would have to earn $120,000/year or more to break even working full time outside the home.
• Married couples file less than half of all income-tax returns, [but] they pay nearly three-quarters of all income taxes paid by the American people.
• It can be argued that the continuing housing market downturn is at least partly due to the fact that single parents (an increasing fraction of all parents) are drastically less likely to qualify for a mortgage, driving real estate demand downward.
• Two-thirds of children born out of wedlock live in poverty at any given time, compared with only 12% of those born to married couples. A child born and raised out of wedlock can expect to spend at least 50% of childhood living below poverty level vs. only 7% for a child of married parents.
• the English term economy originates from the Greek word, oikos, which means household
• Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville both wrote that the strength of the American economy (vs. that of Britain) was partly due to the colonists marrying younger and having more children than their British counterparts

The Kind Words You Say

The Kind Words You Say Can In Memory Lay and Sunshine Forever Impart...

I was just watching an old classic movie, "Johnny Lingo". There's a father that is so mean to his daughter. He always calls her ugly and treats her like she is worthless. The daughter believes him... until one day. The richest man on the island wants to marry her. He offers her the biggest dowry anybody on the island has ever heard of. He tells her how beautiful and wonderful she is. She becomes beautiful and wonderful. It is a cute story.

It's so true in real life. If we treat our spouse how we want them to become, they will become that. We can hurt or help our spouse just by how we talk to them. Let's all say lots of nice things today and always to our spouse. That's the happy way.
 I love Johnny Lingo. You can see what else I wrote about it here

Let Your Spouse Be Who They Are

My friends Craig and Ashley are happy to share what works in their marriage. They have been married over a year and a half. Ashley comments:

"My husband Craig thanks me all the time for "letting him be him". This approach helps us be happy. Early in our relationship when I would make cookies or muffins, as soon as the timer would beep Craig would rush over to the oven with me and as I was pulling out the tray he would grab one of the treats... I would get so frustrated telling him he needed to wait so I could see which one was ugliest and have him take that one in case I was giving the treats away to family or friends. Wow, pretty rude of me. My husband deserves the best, he deserves to get first pick. I changed my way of thinking and grew to love the fact that he wanted one of my baked goods as soon as it came out of the oven! Sometimes now I even tell him, I'm about to get the tray out of the oven, come pick one. This is an example of me letting him be him, letting him live true to himself and not trying to boss him around."

Ryan laughed after reading this. He said maybe I should just let you eat the cooked meat straight out of the frying pan from now on. I said, "Yes, I think that's a great idea!"
We are talking about letting your spouse be who they are in the little things that really don't matter in the end. We are not talking about things that are inherently right or wrong. 

So, how can you let your spouse be who they are?

Science behind a happy relationship

Courtesy of Happify:

Study: two-parent families improve economic mobility

What is the most important factor blocking social mobility in the US? 
It could be single parents, not economic inequality.
 
As reported by New Scientist:

An important new Harvard study that looks at the best community data on [economic] mobility in America – released this past weekend – suggests a cause that progressives may find discomforting. ...

A lot of research – including new research from the Brookings Institution – has shown us that kids are more likely to climb the income ladder when they are raised by two, married parents. But this is the first study to show that lower-income kids from both single and married-parent families are more likely to succeed if they hail from a community with lots of two-parent families. ...

Economic inequality was not a statistically significant predictor of absolute or relative mobility.

How about them apples?

I (Ryan) am the consummate square. Straight lines, rulers, graph paper, plaid shirts. Engineer. If this picture were taken while we were dating, you might be able to guess which apple I cut and which one Leah cut:

And you'd probably be wrong.

I grew up carefully slicing apples as shown on the right: straight down the center, with an intricate cut to remove the stem and seeds from each quarter. If you're counting knife operations, it works out to around 18.

On the left, we have Leah's apple. Four cuts and it's ready to eat. Easy to make thin slices out of, too. Just goes to show. Even an engineer can learn something from his wife about straight lines and efficiency. I never would have guessed that when we got married.

Note: No apples were wasted in the making of this post.

Look at Yourself Before Judging

When we first got married, I was looking disgustedly at our cluttered bathroom counter. I saw Ryan's shaver, his hair gel and his comb all left out instead of being put away. I was getting mad at Ryan and then I stopped for a second and looked at the bathroom counter again. I saw my hairbrush, my ponytail holders, my curling iron...and then realized that my list went on and on. Almost all the mess on the counter was mine. I quickly put ALL of OUR stuff away and moved on. I was grateful that I hadn't embarrassed myself by telling him he was leaving out too much stuff. Sometimes we need to just focus on ourselves first when there's a "messy" problem.