Don't worry that children never listen to you;
worry that they are always watching you.
Robert Fulghum
Hello Ladies,
Just yesterday I overheard a teenage boy with all his gothic friends telling how his mom had said they were going to spend the whole day together. But she changed her mind in favor of "the guy" so there he was hanging out with them instead. He just kept repeating it over and over, trying to make since of the lie his mother told him.
I find it to be a rare occasion when I can share the warmth that fills my body whenever I think about my best friend. The main comment female visitors made after our youngest was born was about why I hadn't taught that man how to put on a diaper properly. I started noticing how much it concerned women after hearing it from every first time guest. When I figured out what was bugging them, I realized that we were watching different sides of an elephant. They were seeing what looked like unbearable male incompetence, while I was watching the miraculous transformation of a daddy finding his way with his a daughther, who was loving every minutes of it. He spent nearly 2 months without working to bond with his new family but no one asked about that. In one of the first curriculum lessons he exposed her to, he would smash her newborn nose into these intoxicating rose bushes outside our window. It never would have even crossed my mind. He learned to sooth her with the goofiest song about "Barnicle Bill the Sailor" and I watched in awe as she fell sound asleep to his raspy, crackling voice. Hardly a lullabie beleive me.
When 911 took place a majority of us suddenly got our heads on straight cause the divorce rate plummeted to an all time low (at least for a few weeks). With that unprecedented threat from the outside passed, it seems like the conversation has shifted to which network can be supported that demeans the family (especially wives and husbands) the most. And I don't even own a television. But I do watch the family channel regularly. I study the comments that women make about men in the beauty shop, on playdates and online, and even in front of their children. I share the pain of gay and straights trying to grabble for answers to the question of the broken family in America. More an more people tell me of having up to 6 or more step parents to contend with, as their reason for reducing their dignity to nothing more than the intimacy of a "significant other". I talk to children in pre-school and the adult school of hard knocks, from 2 to 42 who are still emotionally moved by Bob Carlisle's song, "Butterfly Kisses" as old as it is now. So I wonder why in all our peripheral wisdom as women, we aren't seeing the power of our tongues to either bash or rebuild our nation from its roots.
I wasn't going to comment on this one seeing the "no bashing" sign and thinking how wonderful is was that this was not that kind of forum. However, I did ask myself when I read the headline whether the authors of the study also produced the show "Wife Swap" to have the expendable resources for taking another stab at the family. But then again I'm the one without a television for over 16 years now. And with good reason.
Nearly every single daycare in this country is staffed exclusively by women. Yet for every child kicked out of all of k-12, 3 pre-schoolers are getting expelled from their very first classroom experience nationwide, and given negative labels and adult medication for age appropriate behavior (what I call "frizzamyers" as early as 6 months of age. And the majority of these young victums are both under 5 years old and are boys. More than 70% of males inmates are fatherless. The majority of sexual abuse cases being reported to CPS come from step families. Yet we are powerful enough as women to turn this titanic around. My prayer is that we reconsider the legacy we most want our children to remember us for. We have enough enemies both on our televisions and around the world. Let is not be each other anymore! It's not our mouths but our moves that mold um.
The most important thing a father
can do for his children is to love
their mother.
Theodore Hesburgh
Oh that we would compel rather than
repel them from doing so as women!!!!!!!
Live so that when your children think
of fairness, caring and integrity, they
think of you.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr
They say it takes a village to raise a
child. That may be the case, but the
truth is that it takes a lot of solid,
stable marriages to create a village.
Diane Sollee, smartmarriages.com
When asked his secret of love, being
married fifty-four years to the same
person, he said, "Ruth and I are happily
incompatible."
Billy Graham
Any fool can have a trophy wife. It takes
a real man to have a trophy marriage.
Diane Sollee, smartmarriages.com
A successful marriage requires falling in
love many times, always with the same person.
Mignon McLaughlin
There's a fearless parent in all of us.
Seen yours lately?
Comment Reply
Don't worry that children never listen to you;
worry that they are always watching you.
Robert Fulghum
Hello Ladies,
Just yesterday I overheard a teenage boy with all his gothic friends telling how his mom had said they were going to spend the whole day together. But she changed her mind in favor of "the guy" so there he was hanging out with them instead. He just kept repeating it over and over, trying to make since of the lie his mother told him.
I find it to be a rare occasion when I can share the warmth that fills my body whenever I think about my best friend. The main comment female visitors made after our youngest was born was about why I hadn't taught that man how to put on a diaper properly. I started noticing how much it concerned women after hearing it from every first time guest. When I figured out what was bugging them, I realized that we were watching different sides of an elephant. They were seeing what looked like unbearable male incompetence, while I was watching the miraculous transformation of a daddy finding his way with his a daughther, who was loving every minutes of it. He spent nearly 2 months without working to bond with his new family but no one asked about that. In one of the first curriculum lessons he exposed her to, he would smash her newborn nose into these intoxicating rose bushes outside our window. It never would have even crossed my mind. He learned to sooth her with the goofiest song about "Barnicle Bill the Sailor" and I watched in awe as she fell sound asleep to his raspy, crackling voice. Hardly a lullabie beleive me.
When 911 took place a majority of us suddenly got our heads on straight cause the divorce rate plummeted to an all time low (at least for a few weeks). With that unprecedented threat from the outside passed, it seems like the conversation has shifted to which network can be supported that demeans the family (especially wives and husbands) the most. And I don't even own a television. But I do watch the family channel regularly. I study the comments that women make about men in the beauty shop, on playdates and online, and even in front of their children. I share the pain of gay and straights trying to grabble for answers to the question of the broken family in America. More an more people tell me of having up to 6 or more step parents to contend with, as their reason for reducing their dignity to nothing more than the intimacy of a "significant other". I talk to children in pre-school and the adult school of hard knocks, from 2 to 42 who are still emotionally moved by Bob Carlisle's song, "Butterfly Kisses" as old as it is now. So I wonder why in all our peripheral wisdom as women, we aren't seeing the power of our tongues to either bash or rebuild our nation from its roots.
I wasn't going to comment on this one seeing the "no bashing" sign and thinking how wonderful is was that this was not that kind of forum. However, I did ask myself when I read the headline whether the authors of the study also produced the show "Wife Swap" to have the expendable resources for taking another stab at the family. But then again I'm the one without a television for over 16 years now. And with good reason.
Nearly every single daycare in this country is staffed exclusively by women. Yet for every child kicked out of all of k-12, 3 pre-schoolers are getting expelled from their very first classroom experience nationwide, and given negative labels and adult medication for age appropriate behavior (what I call "frizzamyers" as early as 6 months of age. And the majority of these young victums are both under 5 years old and are boys. More than 70% of males inmates are fatherless. The majority of sexual abuse cases being reported to CPS come from step families. Yet we are powerful enough as women to turn this titanic around. My prayer is that we reconsider the legacy we most want our children to remember us for. We have enough enemies both on our televisions and around the world. Let is not be each other anymore! It's not our mouths but our moves that mold um.
The most important thing a father
can do for his children is to love
their mother.
Theodore Hesburgh
Oh that we would compel rather than
repel them from doing so as women!!!!!!!
Live so that when your children think
of fairness, caring and integrity, they
think of you.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr
They say it takes a village to raise a
child. That may be the case, but the
truth is that it takes a lot of solid,
stable marriages to create a village.
Diane Sollee, smartmarriages.com
When asked his secret of love, being
married fifty-four years to the same
person, he said, "Ruth and I are happily
incompatible."
Billy Graham
Any fool can have a trophy wife. It takes
a real man to have a trophy marriage.
Diane Sollee, smartmarriages.com
A successful marriage requires falling in
love many times, always with the same person.
Mignon McLaughlin
There's a fearless parent in all of us.
Seen yours lately?
Adelaide Zindler, FP (Fearless Parent)
April 15, 2008 - 6:10amwww.FearlessParenting.com
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