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Marriage and parenting are among the few highly-challenging skills for which there are no qualifications, and for which no previous experience is necessary, and for which people just assume they are doing it right, making much of it up as they go along.

Sounds like government.

No knowledge is required. Okay, you take out a meaningless marriage license, a bureaucratic scrap of paper, by paying a small fee. But nobody asks you, 'are you a moron?'

'Do you have an income?'

You're not required to pass a test, like you do to get a driver's license.

For example, a multiple choice test like this:

1. If your wife overcooked the spaghetti, would you?

A. Beat her.

B. Yell

C. Say, 'let's eat.'

D. All of the above.

No such test is required. Is it any wonder so many marriages fail? You don't know what the hell you're doing. You probably got married in the first place because you want what you thought would be some steady, great sex. But sex alone won't keep it going, and when children show up'?

In a one-child household, there's a real chance you'll both spoil the kid and the child will play one parent off against the other. If that child is a girl, she may become daddy's girl and defy her mother.

If the child is a boy, he might become a momma's boy and compete for the mother's attention against the father, the famous Oedipus Complex.

The father could become exiled from the wife's attention as she dotes on the kid, or visa versa.

There are a million combinations.

Since marriage and parenting can have a profound impact on not only your life, but up to as many as eight others (if you want more kids than this you're already insane), let's do something similar.

Let's fly a space ship without any knowledge of the equipment. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

Okay, call me a negativist, a pessimist. But before you do, how many marriages last? There are some.

Okay! Here's something nobody, no marriage counselor, no priest ever talks about'.EVOLUTION. Your new spouse won't be the person in twenty years that he or she is today. I'm not the same person today I was in 1980.

NOBODY'.I MEAN NOBODY'NEVER..SITS DOWN AND TELLS THE OTHER PERSON WHAT THEY EXPECT FROM THAT PERSON FROM THE GET-GO.

And even if they did, how do you know what you'll want in twenty years?

Couples grow apart, because they change. The dinosaurs couldn't adapt to changing conditions. Can you?

Whatever attractions (mostly physical, sometimes money, not usually heart or character) brought you together, will have to withstand decades of shocks, family deaths, career failure, alienation, overwork, substance abuse, heath problems, and petty irritations that only grow with time.

Your husband scratches his balls, and that drives you crazy, but you didn't know it when you married him.

I won't try to speak for women, but let me warn you gals. Right now, your new husband thinks you're a sexy Venus. He can't stand to be away from you. But after you've had a couple kids, you will stop being the naughty, sexy vixen who drove him wild. You'll be the mother of his children.

He'll elevate you to sainthood.

Who wants to have sex with a saint?

This malady has killed the sex drive of lots of men, including Elvis Presley.

It is alleged that the sainthood sex killer particularly impacts men who have witnessed the birth of their child.

I liken marriage to a joint business venture between two people, full of high hopes. About the same percentage of new businesses fail as marriages. The failed businesses were entered into under-funded and without proper knowledge of the market.

The marriages failed because nobody looked at the possible warts on the other person.

'Yeah, he's a selfish jerk, but he sure is gorgeous.'

In twenty years, he'll likely be less gorgeous, but possibly no less a jerk.

KNOW THE PERSON YOU'RE MARRYING!

I'll finish with sage advice from an old lady.

'You'll love 'em and you'll hate 'em, but you better love 'em more than you hate 'em.'

Having said that, I wish you a happy marriage.

' Copyright 2006 by SammonSays.com