From "Meet-Cute" to Matrimony...and Beyond
A Special Podcast Looking Back Over 25 Years of Marriage
Dear Reader,
As preluded in last week’s newsletter, Megan and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. We enjoyed a nice dinner at Montana Ale Works in downtown Bozeman, and then beat the beginnings of a snow storm that dropped six inches of the white stuff overnight.
The highlight of our week, however, was Monday night, when we recorded a podcast responding to so many good and genuine questions from you, my readers. Your interest in our marriage was the sweetest of gifts for both of us, and we thank you for humoring us and providing the prompts for a fun and meaningful evening of reflection over the past 25 years.
Thanks for listening!
Craig
Hot Takes
Two articles having to do with the American family:
“Only 18% Of US Households Are Now Nuclear Families” - I’ve watched this figure decline my entire life, but this number was lower than I expected:
“It’s no secret that the number of two-parent families has been steadily falling since the 1950s, when the term “nuclear family” was first coined and attributed to a prosperous, post-war baby boom. But now, those households are becoming increasingly rare. The U.S. Census Bureau found that this year, in fact, the rate of two-parent households in the U.S. is lower than it’s been since 1959: only 17.8%.”
That’s (barely) 1 in 5. And yes, while much blame should be laid at the feet of fathers walking out on families, Evie Magazine - my favorite women’s magazine - connects the dots and makes the argument that feminism bears some blame:
“When we discuss the most obvious negative effect of single-parent households – absent fatherhood and its proven consequences, like rising instances of poverty and crime – logic dictates that feminism is indeed the obvious culprit. When women as a collective and the third-wave feminist narrative mandate that men are expendable and not truly essential to the functions of a family or a society (which couldn’t be further from the truth), we have the only evident repercussions of that kind of rhetoric, stirred and promoted ad nauseam for decades: the abandonment of mothers, the absence of fathers in households, and subsequently, a decaying family unit.
Journalist Mona Charen accurately surmises, ‘Fathers are crucial to the healthy development of children, particularly sons. If there is one great wrong feminism must be held to account for, it is the devaluation of men’s role in the family. In their quest for self-actualization, the second-wave feminists scorned men and fathers, insisting that women were fine on their own.’”
Don’t believe the feminist hype that men (and marriage) are optional for the good of society; the numbers tell the tale, while the myriad of sad news stories that bombard us day after day illustrate it. God knew what he was doing when he created the family: one man and one woman, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21), raising children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). How long are we going to let things get worse before we revisit and recommit to His model?
Maybe a better question is, “How long do we have?”
The nuclear family has taken quite a hit in the 21st century. “What Becoming a Parent Really Does to Your Happiness” - On the heels of our modern world getting marriage so wrong, it only follows that our modern views on children wouldn’t be too far behind. I missed this article - adapted from, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning by Paul Bloom - in November, but it came back around on Twitter this week and did not disappoint in terms of ridiculous biases seeking confirmation. Consider:
“The early research is decisive: Having kids is bad for quality of life. In one study, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues asked about 900 employed women to report, at the end of each day, every one of their activities and how happy they were when they did them. They recalled being with their children as less enjoyable than many other activities, such as watching TV, shopping, or preparing food. Other studies find that when a child is born, parents experience a decrease in happiness that doesn’t go away for a long time, in addition to a drop in marital satisfaction that doesn’t usually recover until the children leave the house. As the Harvard professor Dan Gilbert puts it, ‘The only symptom of empty nest syndrome is nonstop smiling.’”
With that perspective, it’s amazing any of us make it to adulthood. Come to think of it (and forgive me for pulling out the old slippery slope), it's not difficult to see how this kind of rhetoric fuels the pro-abortion crowd.
“After all, having children, particularly when they are young, involves financial struggle, sleep deprivation, and stress. For mothers, there is also in many cases the physical strain of pregnancy and breastfeeding. And children can turn a cheerful and loving romantic partnership into a zero-sum battle over who gets to sleep and work and who doesn’t.”
When, in the history of the world, has any of this not been the case? And yet, here we are, presumably because enough of our ancestors decided the benefits somehow outweighed the detriments of creating and raising children for the good of the human cause. If this article sums up the perspective of the “village” you're counting on to help raise your children, I would suggest relocating immediately. Your children and grandchildren will thank you.
Don’t be fooled: according to this article, the cute child on the left has no purpose or intention other than to ruin your life.
From “Meet-Cute” to Matrimony…and Beyond
Because this podcast was a one-shot deal (as far as we know), we didn’t worry about being constrained by time. Don’t let the overall length of the podcast deter you from listening; indeed, it’s almost two hours in length, but not all of that is us talking.
In addition to 80 minutes of discussion, we’ve included for your listening pleasure the two original songs (processional and recessional) I wrote for our wedding, as well as the original 20-minute Rehearsal Dinner Drive Tape Megan and I recorded back in December of 1996 for the wedding party’s commute from the church to the rehearsal dinner venue (we pretended to be disc jockeys with some commentary between songs).
Podcast Contents
0:00-1:15: “December and You”
1:16-1:20:46: 30 Questions
1:20:47-1:22:33: “Unmistakable Signs”
1:22:36-1:43:15: Rehearsal Dinner Drive Tape
Song Credits
“December and You” and “Unmistakable Signs” by Craig Dunham
Alan Gill, vocal
Ken Bradbury, piano
Jack McQueeney, officiant
Songs, TV Shows, Movies, Books, and Posts Mentioned in the Podcast
“William and Maggie” by Charlie Peacock
“You Must Love Me” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice
The X-Files created by Chris Carter
Big Fish directed by Tim Burton
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
Megan’s guest post on empty nesting: “Empty Nest-obia (Not Empty Nest-opia)”
Craig and Megan: A Timeline
In case you didn’t know some of our major milestones, here’s a timeline with a few family pictures to fill you in on where we’ve been, when, and what we did there.
Colorado Springs, CO (1993-2005)
May 1993: Craig graduates from the University of Missouri-Columbia and moves to Colorado Springs to join the staff of The Navigators
Summer 1993: First meeting/summer together at Eagle Lake Camps
December 31, 1994: Craig states intent to pursue Megan for purpose of marriage
March 28, 1996: Craig and Megan engaged
December 7, 1996: Megan graduates from Oklahoma State University
December 14, 1996: Craig and Megan marry; Megan moves to Colorado Springs
December 29, 1998: Madeline Grace Dunham is born
August 28, 2000: Chloe Anne Dunham is born
September 1, 2001: Craig becomes Director of Programs at Glen Eyrie Conference Center
February 5, 2002: Katherine Rose Dunham is born
October 6, 2003: Emilia Jane Dunham is born
St. Louis, MO (2005-2011)
June 2005: Dunhams move to St. Louis, MO, where Craig and Megan begin classes at Covenant Theological Seminary; Megan homeschools girls
August 2006-June 2007: Craig teaches Old Testament part-time at Heritage Classical Christian Academy
August 2007-May 2009: Craig serves as TA for the Francis Schaeffer Institute
August 2007-June 2011: Craig teaches New Testament, Biblical Ethics, and Worldviews full-time at Westminster Christian Academy
August 2008-May 2011: Megan launches/directs Classical Conversations chapter
May 2009: Craig graduates with a Masters in Theological Studies
May 2010: Craig graduates with a Masters in Educational Ministries; Megan earns a Graduate Certificate in Biblical and Theological Studies
Oklahoma City, OK (2011-2015)
June 2011-May 2013: Dunhams move to Oklahoma City, where Craig becomes headmaster of Veritas Classical Academy; Megan homeschools three days/week
Summer 2011-May 2015: Dunhams one of 10 founding couples of City Pres OKC
June 2013-January 2015: Craig merges Veritas with Providence Hall Classical Academy to form The Academy of Classical Christian Studies
2013-2015: Dunhams care for 14 different foster children, ages 5 and under
Bozeman, MT (2015-present)
June 2015-November 2019: Dunhams move to Bozeman, where Craig becomes headmaster of Petra Academy; Megan works at Love, Inc.; all four girls attend school full-time
September 2017-present: Megan hired as 1st grade teacher at Petra Academy
November 17, 2018: Maddie marries Bruce Clark
January 2020: Craig hired as Assistant to the CEO at Montana Instruments
January 2021: Craig becomes Marketing Manager at Montana Instruments
December 14, 2021: Dunhams celebrate 25th wedding anniversary
Post(erity): “A Night with Chihuly”
Each week, I choose a post from the past that seems apropos of something (of course, you’re always welcome to search the archives yourself whenever you like).
This week’s post - “A Night with Chihuly” - is from December 15, 2006, one day after our tenth anniversary’s evening visit to the Missouri Botanical Garden. An excerpt:
“All this caused me to think about why we were there last night (to celebrate our tenth anniversary) and how much the glass metaphor seemed to make sense to me in describing marriage. Megan and I have truly had some absolutely beautiful moments together - vows honored, ideas shared, children born, hospitality created, grace given - but, in thinking more about them, the most beautiful moments seem to always have been the most fragile ones.”
Fresh & Random Linkage
“Top Excel Experts Will Battle It Out in an Esports-Like Competition This Weekend” - If we got ESPN, I would totally watch this. If you’ve never been around an Excel wizard working her magic, you haven’t truly lived.
Until next time.
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