All families have systems of beliefs, with no two families sharing all the same rules and values. Each family also has its own disciplinary code. In two-parent families, that code is a combination of rules and beliefs that each parent deems important.

And since each parent comes from a separate and distinct family background with different childhood experiences, all marriages are to some degree cross-cultural. This means that putting together a unified disciplinary approach will require understanding, accepting, and bridging the traditional differences that each brings to the marriage.

Joining Two Sets of Values

When you wed as partners, you had to determine on whose terms, according to whose rules and values, you were going to conduct your marriage. How was responsibility going to be shared? How were disagreements going to be worked out? Whose traditions would you celebrate or re-create on special occasions?

A lot of work in early marriage is learning how to successfully bridge differences through listening and understanding, and how to resolve conflicts through concession and compromise.

When you have your first child, you have to remarry as parents. You begin to discover and determine how you want to function as a family. Now you find that you have different ideas about parenting that had never surfaced before.

Consider how easily parenting can complicate a marriage. Your infant is fussing in the other room. You want to pick him up immediately and hold him in order to make him feel secure. But your spouse thinks that he should be left alone to fuss, so that he doesn't become spoiled by indulgence. So, whose disciplinary values are right? You both are, because a value, by definition, is the belief that one is right about something.

If you choose to argue about whose value is correct, you will each only feel more “right” than before as you defend your respective beliefs. In fact, neither one of you has any business trying to change the other's values. To do so only damages the relationship. It sends a message of rejection: “Your belief is unacceptable to me!” And the argument becomes polarized: “I am as right as you are wrong!”

Resolving Value Conflicts

So what should you do when a conflict over disciplinary values arises? First, respect your partner's values. “We judge this situation differently, and that's okay.” Second, specify each person's “wants.” You want to pick up the infant right away. Your spouse wants to let the child learn to tolerate some mild discomfort. Third, without challenging or criticizing the value differences, negotiate a compromise of wants. So you agree on a time limit, after which if the fussing continues, you will go in and pick up the infant.

Value differences between parents over discipline, how to instruct and how to correct, will continue over the course of your parenting. Often, gender differences will be a factor — you may want to give different treatment to a child of the same gender as you. “You don't know what it's like to be a girl, but as a woman I do! Girls need more time talking on the telephone to friends than boys do,” a mother may say. Likewise, a father may claim his own special understanding of his son because they are both male.

Part of your commitment to each other as parents is to communicate for however long it takes to reach a disciplinary decision you can both live with and support. And part of your authority as parents is presenting a united front that cannot be divided and exploited by a manipulative child. Dealing with the child's misbehavior should always be secondary to reaching a joint decision that unifies and strengthens the marriage. The main rule to remember is never let parenting differences or decisions over discipline become divisive of the marriage.