I have been looking at wedding pictures online. That's how it's done these days.
Photographers post digital images on Web sites before champagne glasses clink at the
first toast.
They are pictures of radiant couples who became moms and dads before they became
husbands and wives. They were recently married as part of the second Marry Your Baby
Daddy Day.
(Their pictures and quotes are at www.marryyourbaby daddy.com/thefamilies.html.)
Shawn and Patrice: We love each other dearly and realized no time is better than now
to take it to the next level.
Marry Your Baby Daddy Day is the creation of author Maryann Reid, dubbed the Oprah
of Brooklyn. Interviewing couples with children for a book about male and female
relationships, Reid discovered couples who genuinely loved each other and shattered
some of the negative stereotypes.
In an effort to strengthen the two-parent home, Reid rounded up corporate backing
and threw a wedding — make that capital W — for 10 couples.
Anthony and Jacki: Marriage is our ultimate way to show our family, friends and
others we are in it for life.
Looking at all these brides and bridegrooms, I recalled a man who works with youth
programs saying that he often sees teens who have never seen a wedding.
Yes, it's always nice to see a wedding, but the children of these recently married
couples are about to see so much more.
These kids are about to see moms and dads who just got the yin to their yang.
They're going to be front-row witnesses to one of life's greatest adventures: A man
and woman committing themselves to one another and to the unknown.
Hopeton and Selena: Marriage is the ultimate commitment between two people who love
each other. We are promising to always love and be there for one another, no matter
what the circumstances may be.
By joining together, these moms and dads, now husbands and wives, have become
two-strong. They have instantly doubled the size of their safety net when a kid gets
sick, the school calls, the car won't start, and the garbage disposal throws up.
There is now a dad who has publicly committed himself to his family, to fill a chair
at the dinner table, to help provide, make decisions and offer viewpoints from a
male perspective.
The boys have someone who will roughhouse with them, teach them how to shave and
model what it means to be a man.
The girls will have a template for what constitutes a father and, when the time
comes, what to look for in a man.
The kids have received a security blanket of sorts, a father who not only loves
them, but lives with them. Somehow the house feels a little safer at night.
By virtue of having two parents anchor a family, there is a framework in place that
is nearly magical in what it yields — a dramatically increased probability that the
kids will not live in poverty, will do well in school, stay out of trouble with the
law, take a pass on illegal drugs and pursue higher education.
But it is the last picture in the online wedding album that tells the best part of
the story, the part that stretches beyond all the statistics, likelihoods and
probabilities.
It is a picture of two little girls bubbling with happiness, dancing eyes, fancy
dresses, and smiles that stretch from ear to ear.
