Yilpi, Ben and Tim reflect on their parents’ courtship and marriage

Author: Megan Wynne-Jones, Getting Married project

Getting Married: Janet and Michael both have children from previous relationships. They have all being living together, part-time, for over a year. Yilpi, Ben and Tim have their own opinions and feelings about marriage in general, their parents' marriage in particular, and their experience of being part of a newly created family.

Life together as a blended family
The children weren’t surprised when their respective parents announced that they were getting married, because they were already all living together. Ben and Tim, Michael’s sons aged 15 and 10, spend every other weekend and one night during the week with Janet, Michael and Yilpi, Janet’s 14 year old daughter. The rest of the time they live with their mother, who has remarried and had four children with her second husband.

So Ben and Tim were already used to the experience of a larger family, and for Tim it is especially good having an older sister. Yilpi, an only child, wasn’t used to sharing her home life with others. Although her father also remarried and has two children, she doesn’t see them that often. However, she enjoys having Ben and Tim at home, saying that it’s less boring and more fun having other people to do things with.

Happiness for their parents
Yilpi was really happy for her mum.

(Yilpi) She’s been looking for the right person for a long time…and now she’s very happy, happy as I’ve ever seen her I think… It wasn’t a surprise because they’d been talking about it a bit. You could kind of tell, they had chemistry…”.

Ben also thought it was a good thing.

(Ben) Before he met Janet, Dad had given up completely on getting married or trying to find a girlfriend, for whatever his reasons were, and so I thought it was good… for him to rekindle the child within and become a bit excited about something.

And Tim was also happy for his father.

(Tim) Well, I was happy for Dad and I thought he was…going to live with her forever and that we were going to live together forever.

Views on marriage
All the children have well thought out opinions on marriage. Yilpi believes that marriage should be forever but knows that people make bad decisions and some do it for security or money. She thinks that it’s a good idea to get married at her mum’s age.

Then you can be really sure. If you marry when you’re young, a lot of the time you don’t know what they’re really like…and when you’re older you learn better judgment of people…

She thinks that she too might get married when she’s older, maybe around 35, and would like the ceremony to be “on a beach with not too many people.”

Tim agrees that it’s better to get married when you’re older.

…When you’re young and you get married you think about different problems to when you’re older. And if you have a baby when you’re young, well then it’s a lot harder to look after it…

Ben is happy for anyone who gets married, although he questions the need for it.

I don’t see a huge difference between if you’re living with someone and you’re dedicated to them and you don’t cheat on them and you’re true to them and all of that, then I don’t see why you need a priest to...say alright I give my approval on it…

He also feels that it is not so much getting married when young that creates problems, but having children too early.

I think it’s the main problem in our society today, kids before readiness rather than marriage before maturity.

Independent opinions on religion
The children also have views on their parents’ religious affiliations. Michael’s children have been brought up Catholic, but Ben expresses some ambivalence about it.

I think generally it’s good but I don’t believe that it’s the word of God, and I don’t believe that it’s infallible and that if you’re not a Catholic you’re going to go to hell. I’ve got some kind of a belief system. I call it Ben-ism. It’s a little bit of Buddhism and a little bit of agnosticism and a little bit of atheism and a little bit of maybe Rastafari just for good measure, and stir it up in a pot, and throw a bit of me in, and it becomes Ben-ism.

For Yilpi, who attends a Catholic school, her mother’s religious beliefs are not necessarily her own. She has “nothing against it”, but wouldn’t necessarily choose to attend Mass or become a Catholic.

The kids’ freely-held views did not stop them participating actively and joyfully in their parents’ big Catholic wedding, where they offered specially written words of prayer for Janet and Michael’s future happiness.

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