Launching Children

A concept I found interesting and helpful from this week's reading is launching children. When a couple is married and have kids, their primary focus on what they do and talk about are no longer about just the couple, their lives center around their children, especially from when they are babies until teenagers even to adulthood. Whether it is talking about school, sports practices and games, the couple's primary focus is on their kids. In the stage of launching children, the family is focusing on launching their children into the world, such as helping them move away to college or even if they go to a college near home, their children are no longer as dependent on them as they used to. They become more independent from their families, and learn to make a place for themselves in the world. This is when the parents have more time for themselves and their jobs and activities and they become a couple again, before they had children. However, this also depends, if there are younger children, then the family focuses on whoever is at home at the time. It is important during the launching children stage that the family still stays a family.

For example, I know of besides my family, another family where there are two boys, and a girl. The girl and older boy have now completed college and the baby of the family is in his second year in college. I know of the middle child from college and he plays a sport I tend to watch at school every year, and every time I would be at a game last season, I would usually see him mom and older sister and depending on the day and game, the father and younger brother. I was amazed at how tight knit of a family this was. I know the middle child, went to junior college before he transferred here to state, and even though he attended here, he commuted from home which is about a fifteen minute drive. His family was as close as they were when their kids were younger. I really value that, and even though the parent's primary focus is on their kids and their sports and school life, they still manage to keep their marriage happy and healthy. They are just like my parents. Where even though they have and are experiencing launching of children, they still manage to keep their marriage alive, and healthy. They have a balance of their kids needs and their own.