Part 1
Technologies that parents use to look after their children include baby monitors, cell phones and GPS locators. Baby monitors are used to allow parents to be in another part of the house while the child is asleep or playing in a play pen. The parent can hear if the child cries and needs something. The parent can be busy with some other activity without fear or worry of abandoning the child because the parent is still connected via the baby monitor.

The cell phone can be used to reach out and call the older child or to post on social media or see what content the child is posting. The cell phone allows for both a quick and convenient way to contact the child and a way to monitor the child from a distance by looking at the child’s social media content. This is a window into the child’s soul, and the parent will use it to obtain an understanding of what sorts of risks or challenges the child may be facing.

The GPS locator is a technology that parents can use to locate their child, literally. It is not a popular idea among many parents but it does provide some with the feeling of having control over the child or the ability to find the child at any given time. This feeling may be wanted by some parents, especially if they are fearful of living in a world where there are dangers around every corner. The GPS locator is perhaps the most egregious example of how technology used by parents to support their style of raising children: it essentially puts the child on a digital leash. It may not allow the parent to yank on the collar and bring the child back but the parent always knows where the child has been, and in this sense the parent is acting more like Big Brother than like a parent who knows the child must eventually learn to fly on his own and leave the nest (Nelson, 2010).

Part 2

Abstract

This paper looks at the meaning of divorce and how it has become so popular in the modern world. It also discusses the most significant difficulties for a family that can both lead to and result from divorce.

The fact that family sizes are shrinking and diversifying while half of all marriages end in divorce (Pew Research Center, 2015) shows that something is happening in the American family that is altering the way families are thought about and the way marriage is viewed. Marriage, love and romance between two people has been romanticized for hundreds of years and whereas in the past it was less socially acceptable to divorce (and before that when the West was Catholic divorce was not even permitted) today it is more socially acceptable for people to divorce. Henry VIII set the example for all modern couples who are unhappy with their marriage.

However, most people enter into marriage with the idea that it is permanent. That is the whole point of marriage, traditionally speaking (Hamilton & Armstrong, 2019). That tradition, though, was rooted in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, which taught that marriage was a sacrament and thus both social and religious. The Church in the old world taught that marriage was for the production of children, which ensured that there would be a future generation. Husbands and wives were not left to discover one another on their own, unaided by any guidance, as is the case today. Marriages were commonly arranged in the old world—just as they still are in other parts of the world, such as India or China. Marriage in those parts of the world is viewed as too important to be left up to the will and decision-making of a young person. In today’s world, young people are given a great deal of liberty and so they are permitted by their parents to pursue whatever options they find to be appealing. They may make good choices but they might also make bad ones. The parents do not arrange marriages because that is a custom that has long been out of style in the West.

The divorce option creeps its way into the mind when it becomes painfully clear that one is not happy in one’s marriage: the other person is too demanding, not as kind as he or she had once been, and tolerating that individual for the rest of one’s life is not one’s idea of a happy marriage: it does not mesh with the romanticized vision one spent all one’s life cultivating in the past.

The difficulty of living with another person when there is no social or religious constraint that obliges the married couple to work out their differences and learn to live with one another respectfully and lovingly, suffering what has to be suffered, is part of the reason so many marriages end in divorce. The other part is that the idea of having children has been decoupled from the idea of marriage. Today non-procreative sex is viewed as normal, whereas in past times and in other cultures it is viewed as a perversion of the sex function. Marriage disconnected from child raising only makes it harder for the married couple to see any point to staying together when things go south.

Divorce also makes it hard for couples later on, and if there are children it can add strains to their emotional and psychological well-being as well (Hamilton & Armstrong, 2019). The difficulty for a family today is just staying together and maintaining...…to smooth out some of the immediate rough bumps and allows a closer meeting of the minds of all sides of the marriage to be possible. Inequality can create upset feelings and derision and lead to an impasse eventually, causing the couple to break down and abandon their marriage vows and return to their original social settings.

Inequalities between the genders can cause problems too that end in divorce. Because both men and women are working now, there will be the issue of dividing up the domestic responsibilities and deciding whether or not there will be children in the marriage. If there are disputes about children or over the domestic duties and who should be doing what, it can lead to an impasse that results in the marriage being dissolved. These issues have to be considered early on and before the marriage vows are exchanged, not later once the marriage has already been conducted.

Inequalities will hurt a marriage, however, only if the two in the marriage allow it to be a source of conflict. Just because there are challenges in a marriage does not mean the marriage has to be a failure or that the two are not meant for one another. People still have a romantic notion of a soul mate and they do not realize that their true soul mate is the one they are married to because one’s spouse is supposed to help one have a spiritual union with God (Jones, 2000). Spouses are supposed to help lift one another up towards the Ideal Forms and assist one another in their journey through life. Inequalities will not necessarily matter in that dynamic so long as the purpose of marriage is fully realized by the partners in the marriage.

Marriage is not going to be an easy proposition no matter who gets married. Even if the two are aligned in all the right ways—they share the same religion, are from the same background, have no inequalities, have settled the domestic duties conversation, and have support from those around them, marriage can still be challenging. Kids, work, homes, cars, friends—they all need maintenance and so too do spouses. People who are married must be disabused of the notion that it is a perpetual state of romance and excitement. It is very much like a job that one never leaves: life can become like one big long day that never ends—especially when kids come along. But that is what makes marriage so important: it is exceptionally hard work being there for someone, overcoming the battles and obstacles, and raising children to be good people. Yet society needs marriages and good families if it wants to persist, which is why society should be giving more positive support to families.

References

BLS. (2013). Marriage and divorce: patterns by…