Tony Walliser

This little girl is not in the video. She wasn't even born. But she is moved to tears watching her mother and father get married. Why? Marriage researcher and family therapist Pat Fagan once told me: "When a child sees their mother loving their father they feel like their mother is loving them. When they see their father loving their mother they feel like their father is loving them. It is the only time in the human experience where you can be loved indirectly. No one's even looking at you or touching you or talking to you, but you feel loved." That is not the case with a step parent, he said. The child may tolerate the romantic expression. But they do not experience that same circuitous love. More often they feel competition or jealousy. If every child could order their own world, this is what they would say: "I want my mom and dad to love me and I want my mom and dad to love each other." Sometimes that's not possible. Woe to a culture that intentionally denies that to children in the name of adult freedom.