Ya Heard: Younger generation shuns traditional values

"The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality and must live with a character."

—Peter De Vrie

As some of you may know, two close friends of mine recently tied the knot and I am now getting a sneak peek into a 'Generation Y and Z' marriage up close and personal. Now my friends didn't go about their road to matrimony on the traditional I-95 highway that others have frequently used. In what seems to be the 'unconventional-conventional' way of doing things these days, they navigated their way through a few back roads on their way to the altar.

What I mean by this is that they, like so many of us in this generation, were living the married life without actually being married. Now my friends are the exception to this type of lifestyle as they have given birth to three beautiful sons and lived happily together for five years prior to their recent vows. I understand that their story is still young, with many chapters to be filled, but I haven't heard of too many other couples to take that same route and still end up as Mr. and Mrs.

However, their story got me wondering whether or not love and family life in its traditional form is still desired today. Maybe 'desired' is the wrong term, but one has to acknowledge that the 'proper' order of love, marriage and then family is not as a high of a priority these days as it used to be. Many of us are forced to play the hand with which we are dealt and have had to make due as single parents.

Such cases have been going on since the beginning of time and are justifiably accepted as another part of life in many situations. What intrigues me most is the growing behavior of putting the carriage before the horse, or in other words, the kids before the marriage and, in many cases, even before the love.

I would not be honest if I were to write this acting as if I have not participated in some areas of this unconventional mentality to some degree, so do not take this piece as scrutiny. It just bugs me out that we readily accept producing children out of wedlock when it was so frowned upon in generations before us. This behavior has become so common that many young individuals these days are prepared to love and raise families outside of marriage. It looks as if the sanctity of love and marriage has become very much compromised.

On the other hand, we have a large group of young people who are in love with the idea of getting married, but not necessarily in love with idea of sustaining a healthy marriage. So in love with the dream of the white wedding, huge cake, planning, and everything else that they don't really pay too much attention to whom they're actually marrying. Individuals such as these can at times be just as twisted up as the other group mentioned above.

Now this is my first time going through these experiences so I cannot give a first-hand account of how young couples went about setting their family foundations 20 years ago. What I do know is that for young people in their 20s, divorce and single-parent homes are as common as waking up in the morning. Sign of the times? Maybe. But one thing is for sure: If you have any children or younger siblings, have them take notes on love and marriage from the generation before us, because us 80s babies may have thrown a few wrinkles in the blueprint to a 'traditional' family.

Congratulations once again to my very good friends, we are so very proud of you both. 0'Til next week, Peace!!!

Dennis Winn can be reached at 703-200-4928 or .