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I am newly engaged of about 3 months and I'm 20 years old.  Many of my friends are also getting engaged and getting married.  I am very worried that my generation isn't taking marriage very seriously in the sense that they have no plan - they just want to "live on love."  I think it's great that they have that passion and commitment, but I believe marriage is entering into sharing your entire life with a person which includes finances, jobs, and religion, among others.  Many of my friends don't have any financial plan or even full-time jobs.  Because so many marriages end in divorce especially over financial problems, it really scares me for them.  My fiance and I have already started to map out our budget for when we get married in about 10 months, and it really makes me feel a lot more secure that we have a plan.  I know this doesn't ensure that we won't encounter money problems, but I do feel like it is more preventative than doing nothing.  This could be a big concern of mine because I'm in school to be a marriage and family therapist, but does anyone else share my fear for society's lack of seriousness concerning marriage?

I just wanted Candy to know she looks amazing!  I hope that, as Dr. Phil said, she will realize that she deserves to look and feel great.

I also agree with Dr. Phil.  I believe that yes, it is the parents' responsibilites ultimately to teach their children what is beautiful, BUT society also has a responsibility and shouldn't just do whatever they want.  If we only place responsibility on the parents, then we should allow day time cable TV to have hard-core porn and let it be the parents' job to keep their kids from watching and immulating it - that's ridiculous! There has to be boundaries b/c parents can't control everything their children think and do.  They can do their best to instill certain values in them, but research all over shows how much more peer and media influence adolescents than their parents at that age.  And when this guy was comparing the fashion industry/media to pro sports or talk show hosts, no way!  People don't starve themselves to death to try to be talk show hosts or professional athletes!

I am a counselor who has taken classes from several professors/researchers who are well-respected by the American Psychological Association.  These professors/researchers are practicing sex therapists who also research issues such as Gender Identity Disorder and how to effectively treat it.  I wish the opinion/ideas of these individuals had been on the show because I feel that the two views presented were the two extremes.  The nature vs. nurture debate has not been proven as completely one or the other in any type of research.  Therefore, the most correct view is that issues like gender identity disorder are caused by a combination of both biological issues and social issues.  I do wonder why we have to be extreme and say your only options as parents are to either  A. support and completely let your child decide if he/she has a different gender identity or B. not allow your child to play with/do things that are inconsistent with what the culture says is appropriate for their gender.  Just one option for the middle ground of these two extremes would be to allow your child to have his/her own interests/feelings and support him/her, but not support that it makes them a different gender to have those interests/feelings.  That's just one of many other options.