Читать книгу The Secret of Happy Parents: How to Stay in Love as a Couple and True to Yourself - Steve Biddulph - Страница 19

Life has natural priorities which cannot be bypassed. You must start with those things that are fundamental: food, sleep, exercise, time to reflect, the love of those close to you. If the basics are not nurtured, nothing else you do is grounded or, if one continues for long enough down this track, things, literally, become insane …

We once went to a meeting of a youth refuge committee. The new staff person hired by the committee ran out to the car park to meet us and to say what a rough day he’d had, he hadn’t even had time to go to the toilet! During the meeting, he became increasingly defensive and agitated, and later that night was hospitalized with a psychotic episode. Eventually he rested up and got better. Steve couldn’t help thinking, that man really should have gone to the toilet!

Everyone today talks about balancing work and family, but it’s a misconception. It isn’t just about balancing two equal sides – one is the root, the other is the flower. If you don’t feed the roots, there won’t be many flowers.

Back in 1984 as we sat talking and preparing the first edition of this book, our baby son would often start calling to be picked up. The writing work was engrossing and important to us, but a baby can’t help being a baby! We put away the writing, and a child’s needs were met.

So! You’ve chosen the path called family and sometimes it gets hard. You may not have known that it was a pathway to making you a complete human being. You may have thought it was just ordinary. Now you understand that you’re climbing the biggest, most glorious mountain there is, it may make both the struggles worthwhile, the view worth slowing down to enjoy, and the delights a little clearer to you.

The chapters that come next will spell out how love works, in couple relationships, and with children. They are arranged to follow the natural life cycle of a family:

2. Understanding early attraction

3. Why we choose one person over any other

4. How to understand and navigate ‘commitment’

Then we move on to the deepening relationship questions:

5. What kind of couple are you going to be?

6. How to solve conflicts without compromising yourself

7. The importance of fights and how they break through to new honesty

8. Adding kids to the picture, and how this sets off a new level of self-exploration

9. The sex-romance alliance and how to fuel the fires that will burn you free

The chapter on sex and romance is deliberately placed after that about children – these two ingredients often come easily in courtship, but with a house full of kids they require deliberate cultivation!

And finally …

10. Advanced lessons: how every event in your life – even the disasters – can open you up to a deeper and more fulfilled life.