CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• PRESCRIPTION FOR A HEALTHY MARRIAGE # 14
  Preventive Maintenance
  (part four - "Word and Touch Control")
  
• Concerns of Today's Parents
  

We're bringing to a close our series a "Prescription for a Healthy Marriage." Many of you write to tell us you missed one episode or the other. All of our previous episodes are archived at our website -http://www.allaboutfamilies.org/

If you want to print them, out you'll find them in a much nicer format than the newsletters. As a general rule, we post the latest newsletter on the web, the Monday after we send the e-mail version. We try to keep it as up to date as possible.

I was intrigued with Mortimer Zuckerman's comments on the concerns of today's parents. I thought it worth sharing with you. His entire editorial is worth reading if you have access to back issues of US News and World Report.

Norman

Prescription for a Healthy Marriage # 14

Preventive Maintenance

By Norman and Ann Bales

What are the touching guidelines for Christians? There is certainly ample evidence in scripture that touching can be a healthy thing. We know the early church practiced the holy kiss. And there are numerous other references to touch in the scriptures given just in passing.

Hugging is very common place in many cultures and normally a wholesome gesture. Willard Tate spoke of the power in "a loving touch, a good, healthy hug. We don't know exactly how it works - we just know it does, because that's the way God made us" (Learning to Love. p. 114). Alan Loy McGinnis in The Friendship Factor, tells about the influence of a book titled The Care and Feeding of Children, written by Emmett Holt, Sr. Professor of pediatrics at Columbia University. The book was first published in 1894 and went through 15 editions between 1894 and 1935. Emmett Holt was the Dr. Spock of his day. He was considered the number one authority on babies. During that period of time, the death rate for infants under the age of one was abnormally high. As late as the 1920s, the death rate of infants in orphanages was almost 100 percent. Dr. Henry Chapin, a New York pediatrician, set out to try to find out why. He discovered that everyone was following Dr. Holt's advice, which said that mothers shouldn't pick up a crying baby because it was his theory that you would spoil a baby if you handled it too much. Dr. Chapin noticed that in the orphanages, the babies were kept in a sterile and tidy environment. But he also noticed that the babies were rarely ever picked up. He brought in women to hold the babies and stroke them and the mortality rate went down drastically. The late Virginia Satir said that we all need four hugs a day to keep the blues away, eight hugs for maintenance, and twelve for emotional growth. That's not scientific, and Ann thinks it's "gospel" but most people do need to be touched in a loving, non-sexual way.

Some husbands seem to think that touching in marriage only takes place as a prelude to sex. That's a mistaken concept. Your wife needs to be touched because that's one of the ways you communicate how much she means to you.

We can't give you a set of concrete guidelines in which we can say everything on this list is taboo and everything on another list is healthy, but there are some things that are clearly out of bounds. Sometimes we talk about "holy hugs," but there's a time when they aren't holy.

You've heard the cliché, "actions speak louder than words." True enough, but words are not totally useless. Words express ideas, enabling us to communicate, encourage, instruct and deepen understanding. They are the primary tools we are using in this newsletter and that we use in all our presentations. James H. Jauncey called speech "the messenger of personality." Words are especially powerful instruments of communication in marriage.

By itself, speech is neutral. When a person expresses ill-advised words to a spouse, intimacy shuts down. Hurtful words erect barriers to communication and raise the level of hostility. They also can be used as tools of flirtation. On the other hand, words potentially improve the quality of married life. Here are a few suggested guidelines to help us get the most mileage out of our words.

1. Talk about those things that interest your spouse.

   Most wives aren't interested in the firing order of the spark plugs on an automobile engine. Most husbands really don't understand the phrase, "knit one and purl two" and they're not anxious to learn. But if we really want to improve communication in our marriage we will listen to our mates talk about things we don't understand, because that is what they are interested in and that communicates caring.

2. Avoid competition.

   It's a childish maneuver to display one's vocabulary skills in an attempt to demonstrate intellectual superiority. If you want to really shut down communication, the best way to do it, is by belittling your spouse with uncomplimentary name calling, questioning your spouse's intelligence and tossing about insulting remarks concerning your partner's appearance.

3. Use appropriate vocabulary.

   When we express disagreement, most of us tend to exaggerate. It might be appropriate to say, "Have you really thought that idea through? I think there may be some weaknesses in your reasoning." That sounds much better than saying, "That's the most ridiculous idea you've come up with in all the years we've been married, you probably hold the world's record for stupid ideas." The words "ridiculous" and "stupid" are dehumanizing, demeaning and totally unproductive in human conversation.

Let's say this much about words used to describe the sexual experience. Appropriate talk enhances sexual intimacy. How will a partner know the difference between the actions that bring pleasure and those that bring pain if they are never talked about? Married persons read a lot of things: newspapers, magazines, books, recipes, instruction manuals, computer screens, the list of ingredients on a can of food, government regulations and even junk mail. BUT NOBODY READS MINDS. If you want your sexual intimacy to improve, you need to talk about it. When you do talk about it, choose your terminology wisely. The correct scientific names for sexual involvement and the parts of human anatomy involved are not that hard to learn and when used they keep sex on a high plane. It is cheapened when we use street language.

If you value your marriage and want to improve its quality, you need to apply the recommendation of Paul to your relationship. "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" (Ephesians 4:29)"

"Many wage earners have grown bitter and resentful, and the social consequences have been disturbing. Significant numbers of men have bailed out of their family responsibilities because the real standard of living for men rises about 73 percent if they leave their families, while the family they leave behind suffers a 42 per cent drop in income. When families stay together and both parents work, the parents role as the transmission belt of values, diminishes, and they grow anxious over their children's exposure to the mass media, especially television and music, which often celebrate violence, sex, and instant gratification." Mortimer B. Zuckerman. In U.S. News and World Report. November 9, 1998

Norman's e-mail address: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org