A school for marriage and parenting?

I spent the weekend in the mountains of Colorado with a great group of men celebrating a great friend. On my drive home, I listened to a podcast on marriage and parenting.

They discussed common issues and broke down the dynamics and principles involved. Then, they introduced helpful strategies for each issue.

The longer I listened, two thoughts puzzled me:

1. People do almost no serious skill development in marriage or parenting. Two of the most critical, complex, and challenging things we’ll ever do. People treat them as a role and responsibility, not a skill.
2. People are hesitant, even resistant, to do this kind of skill-building. They have intense emotional desires for what they want from their marriage or as a parent. But little willingness to go through a disciplined approach to build unfamiliar skills. Even when it would earn them what they want.

I am married and we are parents of two young kids. Marriage and parenting are emotional. But they operate by the same fundamentals as everything else. They don’t get a pass because of their personal nature.

We can be more or less skilled, more or less effective, better or worse. It’s a dynamic set of skills, too. We aren’t good at, or even aware of, everything we experience in marriage or parenting.

We can be great in one situation, sloppy in another, confident one moment, and insecure the next. Sometimes, we can be and feel all these things in the same day.

Marriage and parenting involve skills. The quality of your skills impacts the other person and shapes the relationship. When your skill is low, your impact is far from what you want. When your skill is high, your impact is much closer to what you want. 

So, the marriage you want and the parent you want to be requires that you develop new and stronger skills.

If you’re married or a parent or think you will be someday, build the skills to be the partner and parent you want to be.

Brick by brick. Do the work.