Conference Questions & Comments/Popenoe & Whitehead keynote-7/03

[Smartmarriages ®]

subject: Conference Questions & Comments/Popenoe & Whitehead keynote-7/03

from: Smart Marriages®


- NEWSLIST & DIRECTORY REMINDERS
- LOCATION OF SMART MARRIAGES 2004?
- CONFERENCE EVALUATIONS:
- MENTORS IN CHICAGOLAND:
- I'M GOING TO BE A "LIFER"
- TWO HOT-OFF-THE-PRESSES GUERILLA DIVORCE BUSTING STORIES:
- SELLING DIVORCE: KENNEDY/CUOMO
- PARENTS DECLARE INDEPENDENCE FROM THEIR CHILDREN

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- NEWSLIST & DIRECTORY REMINDERS:

Each year after the conference, we get a surge in subscriptions to the
e-newslist and visits to the web site Directory of Programs.

Remember, if you subscribe and then find you want to unsubscribe to this
high volume list, the info for how to unsubscribe is at the bottom of each
email.  You won't hurt my feelings.  No names are attached to subscriptions
- I don't even know.

If you are listed on the Directory of Programs, NOW is the time to send in
your class schedule updates.

If you'd like to add your program to the Directory, you can find
instructions and prices on the Smart Marriages web site.  Click Directory
and then click "How to List".
- diane 

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- LOCATION OF SMART MARRIAGES 2004?

> Diane,
> Just wondering - for planning purposes the location of next year's
> conference and dates.....
> 
> Had a wonderful time this year again - great speakers, wonderful topics and
> lots and lots of good information.  thank you for all your hard work!
> Michele Schull 

Know it makes everyone crazy, but I don't have the dates or location yet for
Smart Marriages 2004.  I'm looking at Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando, Houston,
DC, Indianapolis, St Louis, New Orleans, etc -  for June 22 - 30 or July 6 -
13.   Will notify the e'list and post on website as soon as I firm it up.
All help, suggestions greatly appreciated. - diane

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- CONFERENCE EVALUATIONS:

> hi Diane, 
> i just realized that i didn't turn in my conference evaluation...oops!  can i
> send it to you, or am i too late?
> lisa kish
> 
Send it asap to:
CMFCE
5310 Belt Rd NW
Washington, DC 20015

I'm reading the evaluations and want to thank all of you for your great
suggestions.  As you think back on the conference and come up with
additional ideas, PLEASE send them along.  Email is best.  - diane

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- MENTORS IN CHICAGOLAND:

Hi.
I am an intern at Chicago Public Radio (www.wbez.org). I am attempting to
track down organizations in and around Chicago that set new couples up with
marriage mentors. I'd like to locate both secular and religious
organizations and was hoping that you might be able to point me in the right
direction.
Adriene Hill
adrienehill at hotmail.com

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- I'M GOING TO BE A "LIFER"

Hi Diane,

I just got home from Reno and my first Smart Marriages conference.  Here are
the top ten reasons why I plan to become a "lifer" - that is, attend ALL
future Smart Marriages conferences:

1) The exciting program of events and great content including amazing
keynote speeches by Wade Horn, Frank Pittman, Michele Weiner-Davis, Bill
Doherty, and Pat Love.

2) Location, location, location! What a gorgeous facility.

3) That $2,000 worth of cheese. ;)

4) The inclusion of people of faith and the space to celebrate
one's faith openly if one chooses to do so.

5) Your completely endearing keynote introductory speeches.

6) The way everything was SO well-organized and clear.

7) The friendly, helpful volunteers.

8) Your sensitity in keeping the conference affordable.

9) The amazing networking opportunities and sense of comaraderie.

10) The fact that, on a personal level, the conference has already
given my own marriage a boost.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for a wonderful, memorable experience!

Warmest regards,
Shauna Springer

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- TWO HOT-OFF-THE-PRESSES GUERILLA DIVORCE BUSTING STORIES:

I'm  going to make a page on the Smart Marriages home page to collect &
share your Guerilla Divorce Busting stories.  Send your examples.  To
understand what we're talking about, get the Michele Weiner-Davis keynote
from 2002 & 2003 - order tapes#752-P9 & 753-P8 at 800-241-7785 Video $25,
audio tape or audio CD $15.


> Dear Michele,
> I am a divorce attorney in Denver, Colorado.  I have had issues in my own
> marriage and just re-read Divorce Busting and am working on the Divorce
> Remedy.  Wow.  I recommend these to clients who have any interest in saving
> their marriages.  I would love to be able to get a bunch of your books and
> give them out during my initial consultations.  If there is a way I can buy
> them in bulk, let me know.  Foremost, however, thank you.  My husband and I
> may have just turned a corner in our marriage and for that, I am eternally
> grateful to you. 

--------------

> Michele,
> Here is the Guerilla Divorce Busting story that we promised to send you when
> we returned home after the Reno Smartmarriages Conference:
> 
> Since Thursday June 26 was our 32nd wedding anniversary, we decided to start
> the day by having breakfast together.  In the restaurant, each waitress was
> wearing a nametag that also contained her home town.  Since our waitress was
> from a town familiar to us, we struck up a conversation.  We told her that
> we were attending the 7th Annual Smartmarriages Conference at the hotel.
> Her eyes became misty and she said that she wished the conference had been
> earlier because her husband left her three weeks ago. In my wallet I carry
> our marriage ministry business card and the Retrouvaille 800 number.  I took
> out a card and wrote the number on the back and gave it to her.  I briefly
> explained a Retrouvaille weekend and told her to call the number if she had
> any desire to reconcile.  She politely put the card in her pocket and then
> said, "No, I don't want him back."
>
> After breakfast, we left and attended the first day of the conference.  That
> night, during my private prayer time, I prayed "God, please soften her heart
> and her husband's heart." On Friday morning we ate breakfast at the same
> restaurant, but had a different waitress.
 
> On Saturday we went back for breakfast and our Thursday morning waitress was
> again our server.  She recognized and remembered us.  She said that her
> husband called her Friday night and told her this separation thing was not as
> good as he thought it would be.

> Sensing a chance of reconciliation, we began to tell her about the many books
> upstairs in the Smartmarriages exhibitor area and especially recommended one
> titled "Divorce Busting."  She talked about not having much money to purchase
> one, so we recommended finding one at the library.

> After breakfast, as we were walking up the stairs toward the exhibitor area,
> we looked at each other and said, "Let's invest $13.00 in her marriage."
> Carol stopped by your exhibit table and purchased your follow-on book to
> Divorce Busting titled The Divorce Remedy.  Carol took it back to the
> restaurant and gave it to her.

> A little later, as I was walking past the restaurant entrance I saw her and
> confirmed that she received the book.  With excitement in her voice, she said
> "Yes, thank you.  I'm going to read it tonight."  She said she would be
> working Sunday morning and asked us to come back for breakfast and ask for
> her.

> On Sunday morning at 7am, we went back to the restaurant and asked to be
> seated in the area she was serving.  With excitement in her voice, she
> proceeded to tell us how she stayed up until 1am reading the book.  "It was
> all common sense.  The only one I can change is me."  She also mentioned that
> her husband called again and was coming back to Reno over the July 4th
> weekend.  She agreed to meet him on Friday for a dinner date.  With tears in
> her eyes she said, "For the first time I have hope."

> We said we were leaving on Monday morning but asked her to stay in contact and
> said we would be praying for her marriage.  We encouraged her and told her
> marriage was hard work.  Then we told our story of separating at the 14 year
> point in our marriage and how we reconciled and have now been married 32
> years.

> We will send you updates as we receive them. Thank you for inspiring us to be
> Guerilla Divorce Busters during your keynote at the previous Smartmarriages
> Conference.
> 
> You have our permission to post this story on your website or use it as an
> example during any future guerrila divorce busting presentation.  We carefully
> worded it to protect her identity.
> 
> Working for strong marriages
> Dick & Carol Cronk, Lay Directors
> Christian Life Center Marriage Builders Ministry, Dayton, OH

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- SELLING DIVORCE: KENNEDY/CUOMO

- http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/2352.htm
This link to a New York Post article about the break up of Kerry Kennedy and
Andrew Cuomo has sidebar ads for NY divorce lawyers and getting a divorce
online. Sick! ³I guess if a divorce is good enough for a Kennedy and a
Cuomo, then I better get one too²----is that the idea? It¹s just too sad.
Viki Smith 
Austin, Texas 
############################

- PARENTS DECLARE INDEPENDENCE FROM THEIR CHILDREN
by Michael J. McManus

Ethics & Religion Column #1,140
Advance for July 5, 2003
                   
RENO, Nevada   Ironically, at a "Smart Marriages Conference" held in the
divorce capital of the United States, I learned how thoroughly America's
passion for freedom and independence has led to a stunning abandonment of
children by their own parents.

For thousands of years, a primary purpose of marriage was to unite men and
women in the shared tasks of raising children.  Sadly, that vision has
eroded dramatically according to Drs. David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe
Whitehead, who delivered their fifth annual "The State of Our Unions" report
last week (see marriage.rutgers.edu/publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2003.htm).

"Since 1960, there has been an 850 percent increase in the number of
cohabiting couples who live with children," they report. "An estimated 40
percent of all children today are expected to spend some time in a
cohabiting couple household during their growing up years."

To put it differently, a child is almost as likely to live in a home where
the parents have not made full commitment to each other or to that child -
as he/she is to live with married parents! Census reported recently that 43
percent of cohabiting parents have a child under age 18 vs. only 46 percent
of married couples.

Half of new marriages still end in divorce  a huge trend separating
marriage and parenthood.  A million children each year experience parental
divorce.

"As a consequence of these combined forces, 69 percent of all children are
living with two married parents compared to 85 percent as recently as 1970.
Only 38 percent of black children live with two married parents, compared to
58 percent in 1970," according to Popenoe and Whitehead, who direct the
National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.

Further, Americans are much less likely to marry.  The marriage rate has
plunged more than 40 percent since 1970.  One would think that as divorces
soared, and more than half of those who marry lived together first - that
the marriages which survived would be happier ones. However, the percentage
of couples who say their marriages are "very happy" has declined about 10
percent since 1973.

>From a child's perspective, more than half lived with "very happy" parents
thirty years ago, but only 37 percent are so fortunate today.

Popenoe and Whitehead tried to put an upbeat face on this grim data.  They
note the percentage of children with two married parents inched up one
percent in recent years, from 68 to 69 percent.  More encouraging, the
percentage of black children with married parents increased from 34 to 38
percent from 1996-2002. And black unwed births dropped slightly from 70.4 to
68.5 percent.

However, these are minor changes, masking the fact that a growing percentage
of children live with stepparents, which can be downright dangerous for
children.  A preschooler living with one biological parent and a stepparent
is 40 times more likely to be sexually abused than one living with two
natural parents.

What's most devastating for kids is the abandonment of them by their
fathers. The proportion of children who do not live with their biological
fathers has doubled since 1960 from 17 to 34 percent.

More men are "having more children out of wedlock, cohabiting rather than
marrying, and divorcing in large numbers," or foregoing marriage altogether,
according to the report.  Eighteen percent of men aged 35 to 44 have never
married, nearly triple the percent in 1970.

On the other hand, many more dads are actively participating in child
rearing - from changing diapers to taking kids to pediatricians. However, as
America celebrates Independence Day, millions of men have declared
independence from their own children.

The key to this divergent pattern is marriage, the social glue that bonds
fathers to their offspring. Nearly 70 percent of Americans disagree with the
statement that "the main purpose of marriage is having children," while only
45 percent of Italians concur.  An astonishing 94 percent of single
Americans in their twenties believe a spouse should be "your soul mate,
first and foremost."

This unrealistic notion makes marriage both more rare and more fragile. Not
long ago, most Americans believed parents had an obligation to stay together
"for the sake of the children," but only 15 percent now agree.

Sadly, the consequence is the average American child reports more anxiety
than child psychiatric patients in the 1950s. Twice as many college students
sought treatment for depression in 2000 as in 1989. A study of youth suicide
reveals the "increased share of youths living in homes with a divorced
parent" explains two-thirds of the increase in youth suicides.

It is time for all American parents to take responsibility for their
children.


> Note: you can order the videotape of the Popenoe/Whitehead keynote session -
> also of the McManus keynote (he was part of the Community Healthy Marriage
> Initiative: Marriage Rally on Sunday) and all the keynote videos at:
> www.playbacknow.com/cgi-bin/rl2.1/entry.pl?cart=972069367.cart&area=cmfce


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7th annual Smart Marriages conference/RENO, Nevada took place
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