Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

“dinks,” dual incomes, no kids. As you can imagine, dinks are often sought out by marketers because
they generally have a higher expendable income level compared to those who do have children or are just
starting out.
As couples come together, they enter into a period that many family scholars call third-culture
building. Each member of the couple brings with her/him/them a distinct cultural background and
upbringing. The more distinct the cultural differences, the easier it is to see where these differences
are. For example, maybe you have a couple where one was raised in the Middle East and the other in
South America. These two distinct parts of our world have countless numbers of cultural differences that
even outsiders can quickly pinpoint. However, all couples’ members can come from different cultural
backgrounds, even if the cultures themselves are very similar. For example, you could have a Baptist and
a Methodist who were both born and raised in the same town in rural Louisiana. Generally speaking,
there may be some minor cultural differences between these two people because of denominational
distinctions in their Christian upbringing. Still, these differences aren’t huge (though some may
overexaggerate them). But even in these cases where people are very similar, there will be cultural
differences that exist that must be dealt with as the couple comes together.
When a couple negotiates their cultural background with the cultural background of their partner,
they are building a new “.” Sometimes these cultural differences can be very small.
Maybe one member of the couple always opens presents on Christmas Day, and the other member
of the couple always opens presents on Christmas Eve. The couple could decide to open one present
on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas Day. In this case, the couple has negotiated their cultural
differences to create a new pattern. Other cultural differences can be much larger. In our example of
the couple from the Middle East and South America, we could have the need to negotiate the religious
upbringing of a children in the Islamic and Roman Catholic faiths. Maybe the couple is atheist, and will
not include any kind of religious teaching into the rearing of children, or the couple could opt for some
type of combination of both. It’s also entirely possible that one member of the couple will convert to the
other member’s religion to ensure religious upbringing in a specific faith.
Ultimately, third-culture building is a unique part of any couple. Some couples will have fairly
minor cultural differences to negotiate, while other couples could have very large cultural differences to
negotiate. The important part is that this is a negotiation by the couple.
Once a couple decides to involve children, Weaver and Lawton break this phase into three distinct
categories or stages depending on the age of the children. The first stage with children (full nest one)
occurs when a couple has pre-school aged children. Pre-school age children require more parental
oversight. We also see couples with children starting to associate more and more with other couples who
also have children, which can cause changes to a couple’s social network. Other couples may become
very dependent on both their nuclear and extended family for child-rearing help. In contrast, others
depend on paid help in the forms of nannies or daycare facilities. When the initial couple consists
of dual-income earners, these extended networks become paramount for the ability of the couple to
maintain their occupations.
In full nest two, the couple has children who are now in school. Once kids go to school, a good chunk
of their day is spent in the care of adults outside of the nuclear or extended family. For this reason, the
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Interpersonal Communication