Expensive weddings equal a lifetime of happiness…or do they?

Sounds like a ridiculous title for an article, doesn’t it? Not so fast…The average wedding in America now costs $19,000 and guess how much of that money is spent on actually learning how to love each other well - $0.

I was recently watching an episode of the “Life of Luxury” on the Style network. If you’re a man reading this entry, please close up your jaw that just dropped and give me a second to explain. I don’t normally watch the Style network, but as I was aimlessly scrolling through the endless amount of cra….crud on my cable network I came across this show that was focusing on a young woman, an heiress to a huge fortune, getting ready for her wedding.

She said that she is way too busy to plan for a wedding. I can’t imagine what she would be busy with, but she believed that she was, so how can I argue with her. Anyway, she gave the wedding coordinator, who was to make 20% of the total cost of the wedding, two-days to plan her wedding. The first move was to book a private jet ($150,000) to New York City to get all the shopping for the wedding done in one swipe of the credit card. It was breathtaking to watch how much this woman was spending on her wedding. She spent $30,000 on her wedding dress, $50,000 on her cake, $80,000 on her custom made fragrance, and a whopping $350,000 on her wedding invitations being sent to only 300 people! That’s $1,166 per invitation! The invitations must be inscribed on some of the Dead Sea Scrolls to be that expensive.

To put her wedding into perspective, look at it this way…

Custom Fragrance $80,000
Plane ride to New York $150,000
Personal invitations $350,000
Spending absolutely nothing on getting ready for your marriage and ending up divorced in probably a year….priceless.

If you are getting married, or financing someone getting married, please contact our center here in The Woodlands, Texas for premarital training. We can do all day events or single sessions, but the training you can receive will literally cut your chances of getting divorced in half! www.smalleymarriagecenter.com or (281) 466-8602.

The big inheritance question

I was reading a USA Today article this morning about whether or not you should leave your children an inheritance. As many of you have probably heard by now, Warren Buffet, who I always initially think of as Jimmy Buffet, pledged over $30 billion dollars to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and pledged very little (something like a billion dollars) comparably, to his own foundation run by one of his children.

As usual, people are focusing on the wrong issue. The issue should not be, “Should I leave my children any money?” But rather the issue should be, “Are my children responsible enough to leave a lot of money to?” It’s an issue of character and not money. If you have a spoiled child that never seems to make a healthy decision, then I’d recommend that you don’t leave him any money.

On the other hand, if you have a child who is loving, responsible, and giving; then I would leave him a lot of money. The reason - because he has already proven himself to be responsible, loving, and giving. So what do you think that child would do with the money? He would be loving, giving, and responsible! Why wouldn’t you want to give a child like that a lot of money?

So while you’re raising your children, don’t focus on the question of, “Should I give him a lot of money?” But rather focus on raising the kind of child who could handle the responsibility of a lot of money. Seems pretty straight forward to me. Of course, this raises the question of how you raise a child responsible enough to handle a lot of money. Which I hate to do this, but I must, get the greatest parenting book on this subject called “Parenting with Love and Logic” which happens to be available in our online store at www.thesmalleystore.com.

Discipline made easy

To spank or not to spank, that is the question most parents want to know when it comes to disciplining their children. But it’s the wrong question entirely. Christians have gotten too mixed up in the style of discipline and have missed the most important element to successful discipline.

One of the most famous parenting verses in the Bible, and one of the main arguments for spanking is Proverbs 13:24 which reads, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.”

One historically fateful day, we’re not exactly sure when, someone read this verse and thought to himself, “Wow, I’d better make sure and smack the heck out of my kid with a “rod” (can be any kind of rod varying from tree branches, belts, or wooden spoons) or I won’t be a good parent.” Whoever came up with that translation of Proverbs 13:24 caused a lot of bruised bottoms through the centuries. My (Michael) own father actually made us color and decorate our spanking “rod”. Talk about sick, who makes their kids decorate an instrument of doom and destruction?

When Proverbs mentions the rod, it’s important to know what kind of rod it was referring to. It was the rod of the shepherd, and he would use his shepherd’s rod to lay it on one of his sheep to bestow high value to that sheep. It wasn’t used to beat his sheep but rather to place honor on the sheep. The same is true in parenting. If you withhold honor, then you will ruin your children. Honor, or unconditional love, is the cornerstone to successful discipline.

When it comes to discipline, each major developmental phase will feel a little different, but understand that the major principles behind effective discipline are the same. Consistency. Consistency. Consistency. Once you’ve established unconditional love, consistency is the next most important element. Too many parents will tell us, “I’ve tried that.” When we hear a parent say this we automatically know that they probably struggle with consistency. Discipline strategies are not something you simply “try” but rather something you “believe” in.

The foundation for successful parenting

The most important gift we can give our children is the gift of unconditional love. At the core of every great parent is the understanding that effective discipline only comes from a place of unconditional love and support. Your child will not respond to your discipline, no matter what philosophy you try, if they do not first feel completely and totally loved.

We want to address stepfamilies at this point. The number one reason that a stepparent fails at discipline with their stepchild is that unconditional love and support has not been developed. You have stepped into the role of “parent” but that does not give you the right to start disciplining.

Your primary goal should be to establish how much you love the child and that you would do anything for him or her. Once you’ve accomplished this, and there is no time-line on how long this process takes, you can move toward becoming a disciplinarian in the new family. If you try to move too quickly into the role of disciplinarian, you will fail and your new family will suffer. Allow the biological parent to handle discipline at first and make sure your supportive of the biological parent’s decisions and discipline strategy.

It is never too late to establish unconditional love. If your children have suffered through poor parenting (and who’s children haven’t), no worries, this is not an article about becoming the perfect parent; it’s an article about learning how to love your children in the most effective way. But if you have done serious damage, then you will have to seek your child’s forgiveness.

WeddingBetting.com the future of marriage

Did you know there is a site on the Internet devoted to predicting divorce? WeddingBetting.com gives its users the opportunity to bet on how quickly a couple will divorce, or if it will last forever. The only information you get on the couple is a picture and maybe a short description on how they met. The statistics aren’t good according to its users. I scrolled through over a dozen photographs stubbornly betting “Happily Ever After”, once you submit a bet you get to see the averages, and there wasn’t a single couple who was picked to make it to happily ever after. The closest couple I saw to happily ever after was at a 51% chance of divorce.

Is this a sign of the times or just a bunch of sarcastic users? I firmly believe in the power of positive thinking, and most couples need all the positive thinking they can muster.