Your Choice: a good career or a good marriage?

Imagine that you are a teenager again.  If you could have one guarantee of the following two, which would you choose?

A guaranteed good career

A guaranteed good marriage

This doesn't mean you can't have both, but if you had only one guaranteed, which would you choose?

I know of a man who travels for work quite a bit and he says he asks the above question to almost every 15-25 year old woman he runs into on planes and at restaurants and so forth.  He finds that there are more and more young women who are opting for the career.  They figure that if a good guy comes along, great, but they don't have time to focus on that while pursuing a degree and a job. 

What does this say about our values? 

Since most who are reading this are married, you might wonder why this matters.  It matters because you will someday or are presently raising children. 

Do you have exciting conversations about what they'll be when they grow up?  Do you read books with them that show characters discovering their talents and interests and pursuing dream careers?  Will you help them with homework and assist them in preparing for college? 

All of us would say, "Yes!  Of course!"

But if you agree that a good marriage has much more value than a good career (again, not that they are mutually exclusive), are you communicating this to your children? 

Do you have exciting conversations about them having their own family some day?  Do you read books with them that show characters learning to be good spouses?  Will you help them with relationship skills and assist them in preparing to have a solid, meaningful marriage? 

Yes, boys will like girls and vice versa, but just because that happens naturally, doesn't mean that good marital skills happen naturally.  Let's (us included!) intentionally teach our children the extreme value of a good marriage, and intentionally pass along relationship skills to help them have a good chance at having a marriage that will an example to our grandchildren.