An interesting sub-theory emerges from research on the untraditionally corrosive effects that having children plays on modern marriages:

But keeping a marriage vibrant is a never-ending job. Deciding together to have a child and sharing in child-rearing do not immunize a marriage. Indeed, collaborative couples can face other problems. They often embark on such an intense style of parenting that they end up paying less attention to each other.

Parents today spend much more time with their children than they did 40 years ago. The sociologists Suzanne Bianchi, John Robinson and Melissa Milkie report that married mothers in 2000 spent 20 percent more time with their children than in 1965. Married fathers spent more than twice as much time.

A study by John Sandberg and Sandra Hofferth at the University of Michigan showed that by 1997 children in two-parent families were getting six more hours a week with Mom and four more hours with Dad than in 1981. And these increases occurred even as more mothers entered the labor force.

In other words, time is finite, so every minute they spend with their kids means one less minute they have to spend more one-on-one with each other. Not hard to figure that out.

The problem is, the prevailing parenting paradigm calls for near-constant interaction with the child, for fear that even one second of neglect could somehow damage the young psyche forevermore. Thus the rise of the helicopter parent, hovering close to the offspring so that no one misses anything during the formative years (and, usually, well beyond them).

Too bad there’s no such thing as a helicopter spouse. Although I guess with all the spousal spying on computer activity going on, that’s practically moot.