The following statistics are from the Pew Research Center's 2008 survey on marriage and parenting:

• Forty-one percent of American adults said children are very important to a good marriage. This represents a sharp decline from the 65 percent who offered the same conviction in a 1990 survey.
  
  
• By a margin of nearly 3 to 1, Americans say the main purpose of marriage is the "mutual fulfillment" of adults rather than the "bearing and raising of children."
  

Dan in Real Life follows the life of Dan, a widowed father with three daughters still in school who writes a family advice column for several newspapers. In this scene at the beginning of the movie, he has an encounter that touches on both generational differences and the nature of love.

Dan is picking up his middle daughter—probably a freshman in high school—before heading out on a family ...

As a single parent with a full-time job and three young children, I often listen to Christian radio as an extra source of strength to cope with my day-to-day responsibilities. One day, the sermon talked about how children are God's rewards to parents. Several days later a sibling skirmish broke out into shoving.

"Cut that out right now," I scolded. "Or you'll go to your rooms until you can cool down." ...