Major/Minor

People love the expression “All I ever needed to learn I learned in Kindergarten”. Frankly, I can't remember a darn thing I learned in Kindergarten. But all I ever needed to learn about marriage I learned from watching my parents my whole life. They were married young (young by our standards today –21 and 25). They had a bunch of kids and they worked hard. It was the American Dream. I would say that it worked well. I don't have any strong recollections of my parents fighting or yelling. So it made me wonder how did they do that?

At a family wedding the DJ decided to play the game where all the married couples get on the dance floor. He plays a song then asks all the couples who have been married 5 years or less to sit. Followed by 10 years etc. Until you boil it down to the couple who had been married the longest left. At this wedding it was my parents, 45 years. So the DJ asked my folks to give the newlyweds some advice on what makes marriage work.

Without hesitation my mother grabbed the microphone and said, “We decided early on that I would make all the Minor decisions and he would make all the Major ones”.

The DJ quickly retrieved the microphone because he didn't like the subservient nature of the comment. Except my little mother, who can move like the wind when she wants, grabbed the microphone back and finished her line, “And so far nothing Major has come up.”

Laughter all around. And you see that is when I realized one of my parents secrets to a good long lasting marriage. Laughter. My Mom thought my Dad was funny (he was) and he thought she was.

So I don't know if they yelled at each other in private where we kids couldn't hear but I do know they laughed together and so did we.