There are times in your life as a father and a husband where it becomes your duty to make certain your daughter is wrapped up in the best cloth you can find. Later on as life progresses, your children get to wrap you up to help keep you warm and in good spirits.

Is this all about diapers? Nah, I am talking about nap time. You or your child(ren) lay down on the couch or on top of the bed to take a time out and sleep for 30 minutes or an hour or two. You pull out the pillow but try not to disturb the rest of the neatly made bed then cover up with a blanket.

Going for a bit more sentimental approach could mean the use of photo blankets. If your daughter is wrapped up in a blanket with a collage of family photos, it makes for yet another photo opportunity to perpetuate the cycle.

If your wife is off visiting a distant relative, it helps to have some photo blankets so you can still cuddle up to her by extension. If not that, having the image of your wife sleeping imprinted on a pillow might make it a tad bit easier when you are groggy in bed.

Naturally, what is good for you is something you need to provide for your wife if the job demands you should be away for a business trip. In that case, the photo blankets will be of your uplifting mugshot to carry her on through the lonely night.

Nice to know there are ways of addressing even the lonely nights that come up every now and then.

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As I have written before, my view on relationships, especially on marriage, is they are all about your level of trust, understanding, and communication. To have a successful marriage, all three need to be at their peak. This does not come naturally but it requires work to create and maintain. The initial puppy love or infatuation phase far too many mistake as being “in love” doesn’t last. Additionally, one has to know what kind of traits to look for in the right one or the understanding, trust and communication will have a tough time forming for the long term.

Why is all of that so very, very important? Any husband that knows their wife knows the answer to this. But it requires the husband to focus on and truly understand his wife. For every 24 out of 30 days, life is “normal” based on the standard for the couple. However, the rules change when it comes close to that particular time of the month. Each lady is different and reacts in different ways but guys have to respond the same. Control thy tongue, respond gently, and serve them, all while doing the equivalent of duck and cover. That’s married life. If you get lucky, you have a tough lady like mine who is just sensitive and doesn’t rip your head off at the slightest thing.

No matter how hard you try though the deck may be stacked against you. This is why establishing a solid relationship based on trust, understanding, and communication is so important to have in place long in advance. You may wake up one morning to find out you are in the dog house. You may have done everything right and still you are in the dog house and confused. It just may be that your wife had a dream that night when you did something wrong in her dream. So nearing that special time of the month, it is enough to land you in the dog house. If the solid relationship has been established, patching the errors of your ways that you did in her dream may only take half a day. What you do not get to say is “But it was only a dream!” That will get you the couch.

Give of yourself and be understanding. So when the times come when she isn’t feeling good by either illness or PMS (photo from link), bedtime is the time you can become a PHS for your wife. What is a PHS? Well, I know I am my wife’s Personal Heating System.

PHS = TUC + TLC = Peace (Personal Heating System = Trust, Understanding, Communication + Tender Loving Care)

Happy Wife, Happy Life!!

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My wife and I have gone to great lengths to guide our daughter into becoming a respectful and honest girl. We knew full well before having a child that we needed to have the traits we wanted her to gain as a part of us first. Children will do what you do and say what you say. We are her role models and we take that very seriously.

I am proud to report that we do have an excellent 7 year old daughter. She is very respectful, doesn’t talk back, and follows the instructions we give her. Sometimes she stalls a bit but we’ll take that as she doesn’t even fuss about cleaning up her room.

We are also quite strict about her education. If something on a computer is beneficial, then it has its place as tool for its educational value. One such tool is Disney’s ToonTown. Since it requires a child to read, it sped up her beginning reading skills very quickly. It didn’t take long before she was reading well past her grade level.

However, she really got fixated on the game to the point where it started hurting her development in 1^st grade arithmetic. So we uninstalled the ToonTown game until she mastered the arithmetic for 1^st grade.

Our exact statements were “You will not be able to play the ToonTown game until you master your addition and subtraction facts.”

She has completely honored our directions and is working hard at learning her basic math skills. However, she is also very good on the Internet even at the age of 7. Additionally, she is very good at following our instructions to the exact letter of each word. So one time when she was using the computer, I heard a familiar sound of ToonTown. Investigating, I found she was still following our instructions exactly as she wasn’t playing ToonTown but watching it on YouTube.

She wasn’t violating our instructions so we couldn’t say anything. Part of the honesty lessons and saying what you mean is sticking by what you said. So we can’t change the rules on her as that would be a violation of her trust.

The main lesson in all of this is the following: Watch your words very closely as the children are listening.

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At one of the meetings I attended, a speaker gave a line that I never forgot. It is a line that we as parents have taken to heart and convey to our daughter. The phrase is a lesson about life that holds true when a person wisely steps back and neutrally observes the people in the world around them.

“We must all make a decision in life. You can play now and pay later or pay now and play later. But be warned, the longer you wait to pay, the greater the price.”

We have all seen this come true in either our own lives or in the lives of people we have come into contact with. However, not everyone is that observant to life around them. Far too many bounce through this life oblivious to the wisdom surrounding them if they would only look.

So what do you look for? Those who choose to pay now are those who get to work, use their head to work smart and set themselves up to enjoy life after they have the money issue tamed down. Another key sign is these are individuals who keep their eye on ‘the bigger picture’ and know to focus on others and not themselves. That is where the wisdom and knowledge is at.

What does it mean you pay a bigger price if you play now? This is actually very, very easy to find as it is all too common at least here in the USA. Listen for the phrases “When is he/she going to grow up and take responsibility?” or “Hopefully, he / she will become an adult when they are 40 or they never will.” When a person focuses on his / her own wants, they do not realize the price they are going to pay.

When you focus only on yourself that is the only person you will be with when you need others. That is the greatest price to pay especially when you reach the latter half of your life.

The saddest part is there is nothing you can do but watch. Until the person wants to change, anything you say is wasted breath.

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As you may have noticed, there has been a gap in my posting articles. I am alive and well – now. But for all those out there who have not yet had the luxury of getting a Thanksgiving gift I got, I will give you fair warning. Unfortunately, my wife didn’t get the warning and got the bug too. At least our daughter was spared.

What was this Thanksgiving gift? It was an insidious little viral bug that is just wicked. This is not your garden variety cold or flu bug. Nope, this vicious beast comes camouflaged to maximize the misery for a full 7 days.

How does this bug work? Well, for all purposes it is like a bad head cold. Since the symptoms are a running nose then really stuffed up sinus, sneezing continually and a frontal headache. This gets worse to the point where it prevents you from getting rest on the first two nights as you have to focus on breathing. Your eyes start to hurt so the standard of laying low and just watching the idiot box doesn’t work. That hurts too. But all of the ailments are contained to the head so it is a head cold right? Bring out the chicken soup.

Wrong move. This beast acts like a bad head cold but it sneaks in a 100–101 degree temp. It was the flu in disguise! Of course, you realize this after you ate the chicken soup and standard stuff you do for a cold. So now your gut starts kicking in.

Combine being overtired from little rest or sleep, a temp, drainage into the stomach, and other food in the stomach you get the glorious sensation of feeling like you want to puke. But that is as far as it goes. You feel like you want to throw up for hours on end but never do. The feeling just hangs there.

Add in your hearing becomes ultra sensitive so even the ringing of a phone hurts and makes your headache that much worse. After the sneezing dies down, then here comes the coughing. Eventually, you lose your voice and each cough and sneeze makes the headaches worse and your ribs sore.

7 days later and you finally get a reprieve from the bug. Followed by having to catch up on a week’s worth of dishes, vacuuming, and the laundry build up, this virus ranks as one of the meanest little bugs in a while.

Just when you thought the cold or flu was bad, now they are imitating each other. Sheesh.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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All too often when the topic of relationships comes up you will hear the following phrase, “I’ll know the right guy / gal when I see them.” Then the ‘perfect couple’ decides to start dating and go through the entire cycle until they break up. A basic review of the divorce rate which hovers well over 50% would indicate that whole process sucks as the failure rate is incredibly high.

I would submit that two primary reasons for this high rate come from some rarely followed but simple issues. In order to know who the “right guy/ gal” is, you have to know what the wrong guy / gal is. The dating game (relationship roulette wheel of grief) is touted as the trial and error method of learning. Well, my take is the dating game is supported and pushed by magazines and other popular media to prop up the sale of magazines, TV shows, movies, books, restaurant revenues, movie theater revenues, and the like. The only ones being rewarded by the dating game are the businesses.

I suggest something that in my time as a teacher was devised with the input of 6th graders. In an exercise devoted to decision making, we covered a few topics the kids were well aware of. Wisconsin is a deer hunting state. So one question asked was “How successful can you be at deer hunting with a gun if you are blind folded?” The obvious answer was not at all and someone was likely to get injured. The other was if you were given 1 bullet to be put in a gun guaranteed to kill anything you shot. Then they were instructed they would be sent to the Congo to bring back the Mokele mbembe as the natives called it. Without any further information, they had to tell me what they thought they would have to hunt and bring back. They all got it wrong.

The two scenarios were posed as questions to illustrate a critical point. You cannot find something if you do not know what you are looking for. Just as it is for hunting, relationships work much the same way. You have to know what traits you want and do not want in a potential special someone. Then give up on the dating game altogether.

Are these radical suggestions? Not really, just logical ones based out of having a desire to not set myself up to get hurt. First, dating never is a good method of getting to know someone. Both enter into it with false expectations and end up lying to each other by putting up facades that do not come down until much later. That is when the relationship begins to fail as the real personalities are shown.

So what am I suggesting? I’m suggesting something so simple most fail to get past their social programming to grasp it. I’m suggesting that we stop, think and make a list of what traits you are looking for and not looking for. To guide your thinking, there are only three primary categories to cover. For you, what will it take in the other guy / gal so that the two of you will have complete trust, understanding and communication. Those are the core aspects to a lasting relationship. How can you tell what is good and bad? Think of the people in your life that are of the opposite gender. For guys, think of your mom, sisters, aunts, cousins, and more. What about them bugs you, what can’t you stand? That goes on the traits side of what you do not want. What about them do you like? Get the picture?

The last portion to this is do not date. Instead, view everyone you meet as a potential friend. Start with building trust and see what kind of friend they are. The general wisdom is your spouse should be your best friend. Why make it harder than it needs to be?

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You have heard of the question “what are you willing to die for?” But I wish to ask you a different question, who are you willing to sacrifice and live for? What I am about to share with you is a completely true account about my mother-in-law.

If you are not aware, I will fill you in on a detail. My spouse is from the Philippines. As a young child, they had no home to call their own but instead slept on the dirt, transformed burlap rice sacks into clothing, and made do with bamboo leaves or whatever else to protect them from the elements. Her father tried his hand at the fishing business but a series of medical issues taxed his humble income until a choice had to be made.

Courtesy of an error by a physician, the youngest daughter of the family acquired an ailment that continually breaks down her neural synapses via epileptic seizures of the Grand Mal kind. My wife had anemia and the eldest brother was not without a few challenges. Like is the norm in the majority of the world, there is no state sponsored welfare system. There is no free medical care. Insurance companies do not rule the medical field. Either you have the funds for necessary medical care or you die. So what do you choose? Do you watch your children die or take measures to make certain they live?

As any good parent would do, you do whatever you must for your children. But I challenge parents here in America to reflect on what that means. Can you do what my mother-in-law did? It is easy to say yes, get a job and increase the income. But the answer is not so easy there. To acquire the funds necessary, it requires you to leave the country and work far away from your children you are trying to save.

So when my wife was eight years old, her mother was working in Kuwait. Yes, the same country Saddam invaded later. Yes, she was there when he opted to acquire Kuwait. Can you tell your children you have to leave them behind to grow up without a mother and a father on the seas? Can you survive with your only contact being a message you get to send to your children once or twice a year on an audio tape? How well could you last as a daughter who loves her mother and not hear from her but know your life and the lives of your siblings are given to your by her sacrifice? How well could you last if you see on the TV the country your mother works in being invaded and not knowing if she will live or die?

Her mother did survive smuggled out to safety through special circumstances to live in Switzerland. Striving to continue to provide for her son’s needs, her middle daughter’s education and anemia treatments, and the neurologic treatment to keep her youngest alive. All this while living in an apartment not much bigger than a 15’x20’, staying faithful the whole time, fending off job loss, personal medical issues w/out family around, the deaths of loved ones back home, and not being there to guide your children as they grow up.

Can you pay that price for your children? Can you keep it up for not just 5 years or 10 but for 20 years? Is there a prize worth the price? I submit to you there is. Whether my mother-in-law knows it or not, I look forward to the day as I stand in support of my wife as she says 5 words to her mother.

“Thank you and welcome home.”

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In parenting, many try to offer advice or high minded theories. Some state the obvious and repeat known information. What will I do? I’ll take a slightly different spin on it.

First and most importantly, anyone who is, will be, or wants to be a parent should realize a few critical points. Parenting is the most important duty you will ever have on the face of this planet far beyond any job or career. Also, parenting is the one job most are the least qualified to do. You have no experience, no training, and learning on the job is not an option. The life and future of another person rests on your decisions; there is no time to grow into it.

In any career, job or any significant decision you will make, you have to get the training necessary to perform the duties of the position. Parenting, as many note, does not fit that bill. Or does it? Barring conception caused by rape, becoming a parent IS a decision. It is a decision by the male and the female to drop their pants and risk procreation. Given the life-long potential implications of that choice, it seems to be utter folly to take the risk carelessly. But alas, many do not heed warning and continue to barrel into bad choices generation after generation.

Before a person becomes a parent by choice, you need to do your studying. You will be raising a person from conception until you pass on. Their success or failure in life reflects heavily on the choices you make before and after becoming a parent. What choices are these? These extend into a series of questions. What kind of morals do you want your child to have? What kind of impact on this world do you want them to make? What type of association will you permit? What kind of media will you let influence their minds? And so many more details to think of but you get the drift.

With all of that going around in your mind, perhaps I can make this a tad easier. First, I strongly suggest finding a family that resembles one that you wish to emulate. The guiding rule is simple. Will all the members of that family be able to say “I have no regrets with my family.” Then the next challenge comes in realizing the full depth in the only 2 rules you will ever need in your household.

1) A smile always and laughter every day no matter what. Why? This sets the tone for your home.

2) Anything I do my kids can do. Why? This is the most ironclad rule of them all. Quite simply, they will do what you do and say what you say whether you like it or not. So it all starts and ends with you.

Rule #2 is the focal point of being a parent. It is said the personality of the child is set between the ages of 4-6. That comes from the example you set as a parent or surrender to daycare. Being a good, solid parent requires training. That training starts at least 3 years prior to being a parent. It starts and ends with looking in the mirror and making the changes you need to do to become the person you want your children to be.

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There is one certainty in life we must all face and come to terms with. One day, we will no longer be here. So the question above pertains to your life. Please go through this exercise with me on a piece of paper and think deeply on it.

Start by writing your full name ¼ of the way down the page. Underneath that, you need to put in your date of birth and a dash with a blank at the other end of the dash. Lastly, center six blanks under the date. This is all the space you have for all of the generations to come to read a bit about you.

Here lies the greatest challenge of what to put in those six blanks. Titles change with time and what holds meaning now will be something only historians will care about in the future. So it doesn’t matter if you are a CEO, President, Network Admin, or a Janitor, the future will have different terms for those positions if they still exist. Have you decided on what those six words will be? I have on mine.

Mine are: Perfect Husband, Awesome Father, True Friend

What are yours?

It is the dash between the dates where we live our life and the 6 words reflect the dash.

Again I ask you, what are your six words?

Make them come true. Live it!

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Let me begin by giving you a description of the standard comments I hear when people know I’m a Stay-at-Home Dad.

“Why are you tired? You are at home and can take a nap whenever you want.”
“So what do you do during the day?”
“Why aren’t you working? Your wife should be at home not you.”
“What did you do between the different dates of employment?” (HR question)

Without fully addressing those yet, I find it amazing that the majority of the grief I get is from women in the workforce. Can anybody else see how the tables have turned? If those same statements were said by men to a stay-at-home mom, he would be labeled a male chauvinistic pig who doesn’t understand the work women do at home. Should a guy quip those lines to his wife, you can bet there will be friction in the marriage with a potential divorce on the horizon.

So why does it happen that Stay-At-Home Dads get such grief? Quite simply, it is based on the assumptions people make. Change is a constant and is also the number one thing people fight against. So preconceived notions are believed over the reality of a situation for a couple, this puts the individual speaking them to a couple in an awkward position and in danger of insulting the couple straining a friendship.

Reality dictates how a family must adapt to their situations. Being a Caucasian male in the workforce makes you the most expendable and the least protected class. In many cases, the wife has the more secure position and better or equal pay. As I will cover in another post, most couples are hard pressed to justify a second income outside of the home in this day and age. here are many reasons for the Dad to stay at home.

The same measure of respect that deservedly belongs to stay-at-home moms should be granted to stay-at-home dads as well. Sure there are bad apples in both bunches, but as a rule each group is an invaluable asset to the family.

I thank my Mom for being a stay-at-home Mom for the first 7 years of my life. I thank my Dad for showing me what a Man is when he chipped in and did the household chores when my Mom was at work.

-MatureKid

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Our daughter has acquired my sharp wit for one-liners. One day while I was working on a project, our 4 yr old daughter asked a question for the hundredth or so time. "Daddy, what should I draw?” Not fully paying attention I answered: “I don’t know off the top of my head.” To which she replied: “What about from your brain?”

So much for being focused on the project.

On a separate occasion when we were getting ready to go to the park, she was really bugging us to hurry up so she could go and “slide on the slides and swing on the swings.” To which my reply was “Hold your horses!” Her response back cracked us up and made us just shut up and go. “But Daddy, I don’t have any horses.”

All this when she was 4 years old, I wonder what the teenage years will bring.

-MatureKid

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Stay-At-Home Dad

Here in the USA, this is one of the most misunderstood categories of people. The amount of assumptions and biased judgment handed down to stay-at-home dads is practically astounding.

So in this section, I will confront many of the stereotypes and assumptions. If you just read the Pet Peeves section intro, you’ll know full well why this one is a topic of mine. People have the right to know why some of us are SAH Dads. And no, it isn’t because we are losers and bums.

Situations influence choices. I’ll delve into that. Also, some of us really love our children and wives and will do whatever is best for them. Hopefully, I’ll change a few opinions about SAH Dads along the way.

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About me:

How old am I?

I’m in my 30’s and old enough for those first few gray hairs to start saying hello. But I still have my full head of hair.

Where am I from?

I grew up in a small urban area in Central Wisconsin USA surrounded by trees, deer, lakes and nature.

What was life like growing up?

My family life growing up schooled me very well on the need to figure yourself out and standing up for your beliefs no matter if they weren’t popular opinion. That and my family is far from the norm so I have plenty of inspiration as to knowing what I didn’t want when I had my own family.

Where have you been?

Let’s see. I’ve been to about half of the states and a few countries and growing in number. I strongly recommend going into third world country areas so you can appreciate life in the USA better.

What do you value?

Truth, honesty, observation, and understanding are at the top but relationships are where success in life lies.

Who do you value?

There are no greater flesh & blood human beings on this Earth to me outside of my wife & daughter. I love my parents but I married my wife. :D

What do I do?

Well, I’m a stay-at-home Dad who home schools his daughter while generating income on the Internet in a variety of methods including writing.

What is your experience?

I am a former teacher who has worked in all grades, Special Education and in the Business world. It is quite enlightening to see topics from many sides. Recently in the last 3 ½ years I’ve started collecting problem joints in my body. I’m going for the full set.

What is one quirk about you?

I am a paradox on legs. I’m equally as left-brained as I am right-brained. I’m equally as logical as I am creative. I can whip out articles in the first draft that can tickle a funny bone or really make you think. At the same time, I’m organizing my candy hearts by color and saying. Don’t challenge me to a computer game as I will quickly figure out the logic in the programming and maximize the weaknesses of the patterns to my advantage.

What can we expect in your writing?

I look at issues and topics from an outsider’s point of view looking at all sides objectively. You will find me to be very blunt, sometimes humorous, but you won’t mistake my stance. If you feel offended by my writing, great!! If you feel challenged, great!!

What is your argument style?

In real life, my debate style takes people off guard. My best friend in college always grimaced when someone tried to take me on over the lunch hour. So did the rest at the table. I employ an Ali Rope-A-Dope method in my arguments. After I have allowed you to thoroughly destroy your own position by some questions of mine, then I’ll point out the fallacy or conflicting points of your logic before I present my own. It makes it tough to counter argue when you’ve already killed your own point.

-MatureKid

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My "MySpace" article comment:
When Kids get Hurt, Who's to Blame?

In the physical world, when something goes wrong and assistance is needed there are proper locations to call on for aid. The Police, Emergency Medical and Fire Department are great examples of this. However, if someone were to suggest those departments should be held legally liable because they didn't stop something from happening without any notification, that person would be laughed at as having crossed the line into total ridiculous level. Humans are not omni-present and omniscient. The Emergency services have telephone numbers and 911. MySpace (and other service providers) can put age limitations (easily circumvented) or employ thousands to watch every single text dialogue, photo or video posting on their website or do what they have done (destroying the viability of the service with huge cost). MySpace has these "Emergency Contact" links at the bottom. "Contact MySpace", "Report Inappropriate Content", "Safety Tips" all sound like their version of 911 to me.

Like one poster said, "Should we sue the phone companies for providing a phone service that allowed two individuals engaging in unlawful or stupid acts to talk? Perhaps we should sue all car manufacturers when their vehicles were used in a crime? That would be ridiculous. Or should we sue fast food companies because their food made us fat? Oops, someone tried that and it was thrown out of court for being ridiculous. At least that judge understood the person who decided to travel to the fast food place, buy their food and stick in their mouth is responsible for their own mess. Parents need to do as much as is possible with raising their children right from the start and using the technology available to shield their children from wrong material. Ignorance is not an excuse in a court of law. Stupid decisions and foolish choices are not excusable either."

However, all blame can not be shifted to a service provider or the parent. The person who is typing on the keyboard bears the ultimate responsibility. If a child posts or participates in wrongful activity and it is reported so it can be caught, punish the child so they learn responsibility and accountability lessons.

I was a teacher and I'm a father. It all starts with the role models we as parents give to our kids. Then it falls to society as a whole to quit blaming others like whiners and value personal accountability for all ages. I have also had the displeasure of watching the blame others game in full action. I’ve watched it happen in the lives of my siblings. It has only served to destroy their own lives as those who won’t accept the responsibility and doomed their young (under 10 yr old) children to a much more difficult life trying to overcome their parents’ poor example. At the same time, I know of some adults who chose as a young child to follow the better road despite their environment and role models. It ALL comes down to personal choice and taking the responsibility and accountability for those choices. No excuses for anyone.

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