On Age - of Mentors and first-time mothers - 11/1/01

Thu Nov 1 11:07:16 EST 2001

subject: On Age - of Mentors and first-time mothers  - 11/1/01

from: Smart Marriages
######
AGE OF WELL-MARRIED MENTORS?:

Dear Diane, 
Charlie and Cathy Kulins objected to my statement in a column
that the FOCCUS inventory was very Mentor Couple friendly, making it easier
for an older couple to mentor a younger one.  They indicated that they began
mentoring after one year of marriage, and that they saw no need to wait
until their kids were raised to be Mentors.

Undoubtedly, some couples, like the Kulins are able to do this. However, our
experience is that those who have been around the track a few times have
more wisdom to share than someone married a short time. Also, older couples
have more time, because their children are older.  And they do not have the
distractions of young children interrupting things making the visit by the
young couple a trial.

On the other hand, Pastor LeRoy Sullivan of the inner city Bread of Life
Church in Kansas City, KS has told me, "Mike, if I had to wait for my
couples to be married 15 years, I would not have any Mentor Couples.  Also,
I could not just work with those who had "good" marriages.  Most of my
couples were really struggling.  But our Mentor Couple training focused
first on improving THEIR relationship.  They were so grateful they WANTED to
be Mentors."  His 8 couples did such a good job that his church has not had
any divorces in three years!

So that proves the Kulins right.  Conventional wisdom can be set aside for
younger couples who really want to mentor, or because young married couples
can be helped to have a great marriage, which qualifies them far more than
tired old poops.

Michael J. McManus 
Co-Founder & President
Marriage Savers 
email: MichaelJMcManus at CS.com
Web: marriagesavers.org Next National Training to
Create a Marriage Savers Congregation:
 Nov. 30 - Dec. 1 in Washington DC

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AUSTRALIA - A TREND:
Women wait to start a family

By SOPHIE DOUEZ 
CANBERRA 
Thursday 1 November 2001

Melbourne mothers who gave birth last year were among the oldest in the
country and had fewer children than women in any other capital city,
according to a new survey.

Data released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that
Victorian women are now almost three times as likely to have children in
their early 30s than in their early 20s. Last year, one in 20 Victorian
women aged 35 to 39 had a baby, compared with one in 25 for women aged 20 to
24.

Melbourne mothers are also more likely than women in the rest of the country
to have babies within marriage, or to acknowledge a father on the birth
certificate.

The report also found that on average, indigenous women are having 2.2
children each - more than non-indigenous women. Aboriginal women are also
younger when they give birth, aged 24.5 years compared with a national
average of 29.8.

If current trends continue, one third of Victorian women and a quarter of
Australian women will remain childless.

Nationally, 49 per cent of women who gave birth last year were aged 30 or
over, up from one quarter in 1980. Fathers are also getting older, being an
average age of 32 when their partners gave birth.

The average age of Victorian mothers last year was 30.3 years, equal to the
age of mothers in the ACT and six months older than their NSW counterparts.

The bureau's report said that regardless of a woman's age, the higher her
educational achievements, the fewer children she was likely to have. Census
figures from 1996 showed that for women over 30, those without a degree or
higher qualification had 1.5 times the number of children than those who had
obtained these qualifications.

Of the 249,600 babies born last year, more than half were boys.

This represented the first increase in the number of babies since 1992, but
Australia's fertility rate remained stable on 1.75 children per woman, below
the 2.1 required for a woman to replace herself and her partner.

The bureau estimated that a declining birth rate, ageing population and
average immigration of 90,000 people a year would result in the natural
population increase falling below zero in the 2030s.

But Australia's fertility rate, despite being lower than that of the United
States and New Zealand, remained significantly higher than many European
countries, and Japan.

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