Adult-Child Miseries | Valentine's Day Plan Ahead | The Rise of Family-Friendly Cities - 11/29/07

[Smartmarriages]

- TODAY SHOW LOOKING FOR PARENTS AND ADULT CHILDREN - GRAB AN OAR
- COUPLES CRUISE FOR MARRIAGE WEEK - PLAN AHEAD
- MARRIAGE MAKES SENSE FOR CITIES - TREND SPOTTING

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- TODAY SHOW LOOKING FOR PARENTS AND ADULT CHILDREN - GRAB AN OAR

Josh Coleman will be featured on the The Today Show in a segment on healing
estrangements between parents and their adult children based on his new
book, "WHEN PARENTS HURT: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown
Child Don't Get Along" (HarperCollins). These rifts can have a huge impact
on a marriage or remarriage - it's hard to be happy, or happily married,
when you're feeling unloved/unappreciated by your kids.

How you can help: they're looking for parents and/or adult children who are
currently estranged OR who were once estranged and have mended. These
teaching moments depend on personal stories, so please help if you
can....it's a great way to grab an oar.

If you have any questions or interest, contact Joshua Coleman at 510 547
6500 or drjoshuacoleman at comcast.net

The show will air shortly before Christmas - perfect timing for families -
but that makes it urgent to get this lined up.  Please forward this to
anyone you think might be willing to help. This can be couples or just one
parent or a single parent.  - diane

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- COUPLES CRUISE FOR MARRIAGE WEEK - PLAN AHEAD
I just got an inquiry about things for couples to do during Marriage Week.
This one isn't exactly during that week (Feb 7 -14) but you could wow!! her
with a cruise ticket wrapped up in a red heart shaped box:

> Couples' Valentine's Cruise
> Join us for this fabulously fun couples' cruise that includes marriage
> seminars and group activities, such as a "Marriage Game Show" and group
> socials. Intimacy educator and author, Laura Brotherson, entertains,
> uplifts and energizes couples as the headliner. This cruise fills fast...so
> book early! "It felt like I was out on a really fun date for seven days in a
> row!" See website for info and fun cruise photos.
> Feb 23 - March 1, 2008: Southern Caribbean Cruise
> Call Cruise Planners today to reserve your cabin.
> Website: http://www.strengtheningmarriage.com/cruise.php
> Phone: 866- 446-4218

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- MARRIAGE MAKES SENSE FOR CITIES - TREND SPOTTING

For our "signs of the times" folder.....it's now deemed hip and cool and
good for the economy to be married with children!  - diane

Commentary 
The Wall Street Journal
The Rise of Family-Friendly Cities
By JOEL KOTKIN
November 27, 2007

> Married people with children tend to be both successful and motivated,
> precisely the people who make economies go. They are twice as likely to be in
> the top 20% of income earners, according to the Census, and their incomes have
> been rising considerably faster than the national average. . .

> Contrary to popular belief, moreover, the family is far from the brink of
> extinction. Most Americans, notes the Pew Research Center, still regard
> marriage as the ideal state. Upwards of 80% still marry, and the vast majority
> end up having children. Brookings demographer Bill Frey notes that the number
> of married couples with children has actually been on the rise after decades
> of decline. Mr. Frey traces this to changing attitudes among the native born,
> as well as the growth of a largely family-oriented immigrant population.
> 
> The rapidly increasing percentage of college educated women, a group that
> places a high value on marriage and children, are emerging as critical shapers
> of the future skilled workforce. Two decades ago, these women were less likely
> than other women to marry. Today, a single, 30-year-old woman with a graduate
> degree has about a 75% chance of getting married, compared with a single
> 30-year-old woman with less education, who has about a 66% chance. Overall,
> reports The Center for Economic and Policy Research, women in their late 20s
> and early 30s who are in the top 10% earning bracket are just as likely to be
> married as other women who work full-time.


For much of the past decade, business recruiters, cities and urban
developers have focused on the "young and restless," the "creative class,"
and the so-called "yuspie" -- the young urban single professional. Cities,
they've said, should capture this so-called "dream demographic" if they wish
to inhabit the top tiers of the economic food chain and enjoy the fastest
and most sustained growth.

This focus -- epitomized by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm's risible "Cool
Cities" initiative -- is less successful than advertised. Cincinnati,
Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit and Memphis have danced to the tune of
the hip and the cool, yet largely remain wallflowers in terms of economic
and demographic growth. Instead, an analysis of migration data by my
colleagues at the Praxis Strategy Group shows that the strongest job growth
has consistently taken place in those regions -- such as Houston, Dallas,
Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham -- with the largest net in-migration of young,
educated families ranging from their mid-20s to mid-40s.

Urban centers that have been traditional favorites for young singles, such
as Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have
experienced below-average job and population growth since 2000. San
Francisco and Chicago lost population during that period; even
immigrant-rich New York City and Los Angeles County have shown barely
negligible population growth in the last two years, largely due to a major
out-migration of middle class families.

Married people with children tend to be both successful and motivated,
precisely the people who make economies go. They are twice as likely to be
in the top 20% of income earners, according to the Census, and their incomes
have been rising considerably faster than the national average.

Indeed, if you talk with recruiters and developers in the nation's fastest
growing regions, you find that the critical ability to lure skilled workers,
long term, lies not with bright lights and nightclubs, but with ample
economic opportunities, affordable housing and family friendly communities
not too distant from work. "People who come here tend to be people who have
long commutes elsewhere, and who have young children," notes Pat Riley,
president of Alan Tate company, a large residential brokerage in Charlotte,
N.C. "They want to be somewhere where they don't miss their kids growing up
because there's no time."

There is a basic truth about the geography of young, educated people. They
may first migrate to cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston or San
Francisco. But they tend to flee when they enter their child-rearing years.
Family-friendly metropolitan regions have seen the biggest net gains of
professionals, largely because they not only attract workers, but they also
retain them through their 30s and 40s.

Advocates of the brew-latté-and-they-will-come approach often point to
greater Portland, Ore., which has experienced consistent net gains of
educated workers, including families. Yet most of that migration -- as well
as at least three quarters of the region's population and job growth -- has
been not to the increasingly childless city, but to the suburban periphery.
This pattern holds true in virtually every major urban region.

Contrary to popular belief, moreover, the family is far from the brink of
extinction. Most Americans, notes the Pew Research Center, still regard
marriage as the ideal state. Upwards of 80% still marry, and the vast
majority end up having children. Brookings demographer Bill Frey notes
thatthe number of married couples with children has actually been on the
rise after decades of decline. Mr. Frey traces this to changing attitudes
among the native born, as well as the growth of a largely family-oriented
immigrant population.

The rapidly increasing percentage of college educated women, a group that
places a high value on marriage and children, are emerging as critical
shapers of the future skilled workforce. Two decades ago, these women were
less likely than other women to marry. Today, a single, 30-year-old woman
with a graduate degree has about a 75% chance of getting married, compared
with a single 30-year-old woman with less education, who has about a 66%
chance. Overall, reports The Center for Economic and Policy Research, women
in their late 20s and early 30s who are in the top 10% earning bracket are
just as likely to be married as other women who work full-time.

True, today's American family does not mirror the narrowly defined unit of
the 1950s, but it does reflect, ironically perhaps, aspects of our earlier
social structures. As Stephanie Coontz at the Council on Contemporary
Families has pointed out, the 1950s were an anomaly; a period of high
birthrates, low divorce rates and remarkable social stability, with a
preponderance of nuclear families. Earlier generations of American families
tended to be more ad hoc, or as we would say today, "blended," with uncles,
aunts, grandparents, stepparents and domestic employees often playing major
roles in child-rearing. These patterns were reinforced by the dislocations
of immigration and westward migration.

Today's families are similarly expansive. With a majority of wives now
working, and more having their children at a later age, child-raising roles
have tended to extend beyond the biological parents. It may not take a
"village," as Hillary Clinton has asserted, to raise a child, but families
are becoming more complex. For example, many ostensibly single and childless
households include "empty nesters," grandparents or divorced fathers, who,
although not living with their progeny, are still deeply involved family
members.

This web of relationships affects where people live and work. The presence
of a familial network has long been known as one reason for immigrants to
cluster. Similarly, grandparents tend to follow grandchildren, and sometimes
vice-versa, since they offer the prospect for low-cost help with childcare.

The family's enduring supremacy is also apparent in the attitudes of young
people, the so-called millennials. As Morley Winograd and Michael Hais
suggest in their upcoming book, "Millennial Mainstream," this new generation
is twice as numerous as Generation X, and far more family-oriented. They
display markedly less proclivity for teen pregnancy, abortion and juvenile
crime. They also tend to have more favorable relations with their parents,
with half staying in daily touch and almost all in weekly contact.

The evidence thus suggests that the obsession with luring singles to cities
is misplaced. Instead, suggests Paul Levy, president of Philadelphia's
Center City district association, the emphasis should be on retaining young
people as they grow up, marry, start families and continue to raise them.

Mr. Levy notes that the remarkable transformation of once sedate Center City
-- the area's population has grown to over 90,000 -- has indeed been due
primarily to young singles, childless couples and a few "empty nesters." The
proliferation of clubs, restaurants and bars has created an almost Manhattan
ambiance. But he suggests that the district is reaching the limits of its
success. The flourishing singles-bar scene has not compensated for the
continued movement of middle- and working-class families -- as well as jobs
-- to the region's burgeoning suburbs. Amid a much-hyped boom, Philadelphia
has lost population, and its share of the region's wealth has dropped to 17%
from 22% since 1990.

Only 14% of Center City residents have children, Mr. Levy says, and roughly
half its young people depart once they enter their mid-30s. "If you want to
sustain the revival you have to deal with the fact that people with six year
olds keep moving to the suburbs," Mr. Levy suggests. "Empty nesters and
singles are not enough."

Boosters such as Mr. Levy look increasing towards reviving the traditional
family neighborhoods which surround Center City. His organization has worked
closely with local public and private schools, church and civic
organizations to build up the support structures that might convince today's
youthful inner city urbanites to remain as they start families. "Our
agenda," Mr. Levy says, "has to change. We have to look at the parks, the
playgrounds and the schools."

Such a shift in emphasis could mark a new beginning for many long-neglected
urban neighborhoods across the country. It's time to recognize that today,
as has been the case for millennia, families provide the most reliable
foundation for successful economies.

Mr. Kotkin, Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, is the author of "The
City: A Global History" (Modern Library, 2006).
 

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