Monthly Archives: June 2015

The More Kids, The Better?!?!?

30 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Red Pill

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Last night I had a friend, her two daughters, and her two nieces over for a BBQ and I realized something very strange — somehow six kids are a lot easier than two!

Let me explain, I have a 10-year-old and a 4-year-old. She has a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. Her sister-in-law’s kids are 7 and 4. So just by chance, for once, everyone had a playmate! And so play they did, not one bit of whining, complaining, or “I’m bored” to be heard, for hours. But there was a lot of happy little girl ear piercing screeching, laughter, and frivolity!

My friend and I got to simply sit and relax, a rare occasion for us both. That’s when it struck me — more kids are somehow easier than few.

My babysitter, who I have talked about before, is part of a very traditional old Scandinavian religious group similar to Amish. The women do not practice birth control, as a result a child arrives every year or so once they marry until they can’t have any more. Every child is considered a blessing. Families are large, 13 children is not unusual.

For these women, life is basically one big play date. They get together, visit, and their children happily run about. Last night I understood why these women are all pretty happy and content, their children are exceedingly well behaved, and how and why it works.

I was sharing this observation with a friend who is more of a math and science type. As he put it, what I was experiencing was called chaos theory — a complex system that organizes itself.

So on those days when your children are on our last nerve, try adding on a few more! It works shockingly well.  Short of that, head for a park or somewhere there will be other children around, bring a book, and enjoy the peace and quiet for a change!

Let those who have ears hear.

(And for those tough parenting moments where you just need a good laugh, I highly recommend this blog, Underdaddy. You will be howling in laughter about the absurdity of having children in no time, guaranteed! Enjoy!)

Choose to be Content

29 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

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It is not often Yoda’s other half writes a blog, but it is worth reading when she does! Enjoy!

Let those who have ears hear…

Spawny's Space

Mrs. Yoda has graciously accepted an invitation to do a guest post.

Choices a big part of life they are.  Affect the present and the future they do.  But many creatures consider choices not.  An improvement in life by improving decision making very possible it is.  Of particular importance is that creatures choose happiness and contentment not.  Odd this would be.  Females seem to be afflicted strongly they are (but males afflicted also they would be).   Examples follow they do,

1. Always want more one does (and obsess they might)

2. Never forgive or forget some might

3. Be happy being unhappy some do (but not really happy they are)

4.  Selfish attitude ingrained it is (e.g. they make sammiches not)

Degoba a large swamp it is.  And life always easy it is not.  But non-obvious beauty there is.  Enjoy this planet I do.  And Yoda and I many pleasant…

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Female Fertility Does Have a “Use By” Date

27 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by in Sex and Such

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Female fertility is often a taboo topic, but I think it’s one that needs to be discussed more openly and honestly than it is currently. So I am going to take the risk and talk about this important topic in the interest of freedom of information.

In addition to writing this blog, I have spent the last 20+ years working as a writer and editor, mostly covering the health and medical beat. Fertility, infertility, women’s reproductive health, birth control, and the like are topics I have covered many times.

Something that is often not said is that female fertility starts to decline, and dramatically so, around age 35. But with so many women being encouraged to put career before babies, the message they are often told is “there’s always time for that.”

Well, three dear friends of mine have found out the hard way that’s simply not true. All waited to around age 38 to get started with baby making, only to find even with all the help medical science had to offer, it just wasn’t meant to be. All were devastated by this fact. And all said, “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

It’s because of what I watched them go through that I am telling you this now.

But celebrities are having babies left and right at age 45 plus, right? Yes, some do. But not without a lot of help, and possibly a surrogate, or donor eggs, or adoption.

The truth is, after age 40 even the most advanced infertility procedure — in vitro — where sperm and egg meet outside of the body and are implanted at just the right moment — has about a 2 percent success rate (after age 40.)

Even if a woman freezes her eggs while younger, the success rates of the in vitro procedure are not increased. The hormonal mix after age 40 is hit and miss.

For some women, it indeed is no problem. In fact, after the age of 40 is the second most common time for a woman to have an unplanned pregnancy, resulting in “change of life babies” who are born to moms who think they don’t have to worry about birth control measures anymore.

I had my own children at the age of 33 and 40, both conceived within three months of deciding to try. I think a lot of that was due to both my in depth knowledge of how it works, and also just plain old good luck.

Maybe it is TMI, but I have always had very regular cycles and I have never had some of the the gyn issues that some women struggle with, such as endometriosis, fibroids, pelvic inflammatory disease, STD’s, or other factors that can greatly impact fertility. For women who do have these issues, timing is even more critical as their fertility can be severely compromised even by their mid 20s.

If you want a family, may I suggest another path? Have your children young and start you career in your 40s, rather than the more promoted path of having a career in your 20s and 30s and starting a family at 40.

I would not wish upon anyone the heartbreak and disappointment I have watched my friends go though. They just didn’t know, and nobody ever told them this. That’s why I am telling you this now. Infertility is not something I would wish on anyone, and it is a very private and deep pain.

Of my three friends (and their husbands), one has adopted two little girls, one has decided to stop trying infertility treatments and to accept her DINK lifestyle and focus on being thankful she has her wonderful husband to share her life with, and the third is right now undergoing what will likely be the final attempts. I know all would give almost anything for things to have turned out differently and for the third, I still hope that they will.

Doing different is not always easy, but sometimes it is the best path. There are challenges of parenting at any age, so I am not sure the advice to put off babies until one is in her late 30s for financial and career reasons is sound advice. I got lucky. And I am glad that I did. But just because it worked out that way for me, is no guarantee it will for others.

After watching what my friends have gone through, it’s not a risk I would advise someone talking unless they are 100 percent ok with the possibility that it may never happen at all.

(And btw, I am in no way endorsing teen pregnancy or that women have babies when they are not in a lifetime relationship. If it happens, by all means make the best of it, but to do so on purpose is just as unwise as waiting until age 47 to start trying.)

Moms Need Dads

21 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

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Last Father’s Day I did a post on why kids need their dads. This year I am going to focus on why moms need their kid’s dads, too!

(And yes, I know, I am a single mom. So if I think kid’s need their dad’s, where are mine? Well, that’s a long story and one I am not going to go into here. But it is because of my living as a single mom that I know firsthand the ways dads are a huge asset to moms, and so that is what I would like to focus on rather than my personal story and mistakes.)

Before I had children, I did not realize how much time and attention and energy children take. It is hard to explain to someone without children. But after having children myself I realized why women didn’t rule the world. They were too busy with children. And that’s not a bad thing.

I also realized why it is good for the man to be the leader in the family, because once mom has children (which was not really a choice up until 40 years ago, so all this is ancient programming) she really NEEDS someone else to take the lead so she can focus on the offspring.

And so the division of labor began, not out of oppression, but out of necessity. Women who are pregnant or who have young children simply cannot hunt. How on earth could a woman hunt with a howling offspring scaring off any game long before she can get close enough to catch it? Today, hunting has been replaced by a indirect trade economy where money is exchanged for things like food. Sure, mom could go get a job, and many do, but she still can’t leave the offspring home alone and so it’s either her caring for them or her paying someone else to care for them while she works.

I am going to say something truly shocking here but — how about DAD can go hunting (or to work) and mom can take care of the kiddos? And while she is caring for the kiddos and teaching them about life she can do things like cook, and nest, and take care of the home front? To be a helpmate to her lead. It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?

Many of the stay at home moms I know struggle with dissatisfaction, in part because I believe our society undervalues this actually very practical division of labor. These days, SAHMs are all too often treated like they are “wasting” their lives.  And of course they also often go without some of the material things two income families may have. But are they “wasting” their lives? Hardly!

When I was expecting I had this quote by Jacqueline Kennedy hanging on my fridge: “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.”

So that’s why moms need dads. So dad can take the lead and mom can focus on the very important job of raising the kids. (Mom can always have “a career” when the nest is empty. In everything, there is a season.) And of course, as I wrote about in the link above last year, kids need their dad, too. It may sound old fashioned, but it works.

And as someone who is trying madly to both hunt and be a mom, trust me — moms need dads (women need men). If you have one, willingly hand him the reigns, cheer him on, be his biggest fan, and thank him every day for all he does for you and the kids. He’s a hero!

Let those who have ears hear.

Men and Women: Two Halves of a Whole?

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in Gender

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There is a concept in Chinese culture that has no real equivalent that I know of in the West, but it is a concept well worth pondering — yin and yang.

Yin and yang is difficult to really define because it can mean many things but in short it is like two parts making a whole, the up and the down, the left and the right, the night and day, the power of opposites attracting. Neither is better or worse, good or bad, right or wrong. They are separate but equal. And not only that, they need each other to be complete, balanced, whole.

In Western culture there is a more dualistic thought process, more like either/or. Something is either good or bad, either right or wrong, either up or down, either yes or no. There is no yin AND yang, it’s yin OR yang.

Dualistic thinking has its place, no doubt. However, as anything it also has its limitations. I believe a lot of the nonsense we have going on surrounding gender these days is related to the inability in our culture to see the strength, even necessity, of the yin and the yang.

Feminism, for example, seeks to bring gender to the middle, to encourage women to act more masculine and to encourage men to act more feminine. The obliteration of gender seems to be the ideal, the definition of equal. But is it?

Feminism also teaches that gender is a social construct, or in other words we are not born male or female, we are taught to be male or female. This implies that male and female are learned roles, not naturally inborn ones.

Well anyone who played peek a boo in preschool quickly learned that there are indeed differences between males and females. Feminists might say these differences are only physical. But are they?

An even deeper question is: are these differences bad? Good? Do they have to be either bad or good? Could they be both? Is minimizing or eliminating them the answer? Or is celebrating them?

Personally, I think it is a mistake to try and bring gender to the middle, to seek equality in the elimination of the yin yang element to gender. Androgyny? Blech.

I think women NEED men. I think men NEED women. I think men and women are attracted to each other because they are two parts of one whole.

Of course in today’s highly charged social, legal, and political climate, embracing the yin and yang concept of gender can be quite dangerous, costly, and damaging. The stakes are incredibly high. And they are currently tilted in (surprise!) the female interest. That’s why so many men are opting out, going their own way (mtgow.) And why so many women are wondering, where have all the good men gone? The good men understand full well the current sexual marketplace (smp) and marriage marketplace (mmp) and are just not willing to take the risk or have been burned badly already and are not willing to take the risk again. If I were a man, I can’t say I would not feel the same.

I vote we bring back women being women and men being men. The yin and yang version. Two halves of one whole, neither inferior or superior, different, but both equally necessary, each with their own strengths and weaknesses that just so happen to perfectly complement the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Imagine that!?! Viva la differance!

Let those who have ears hear.

There Is Always A Downside

16 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Red Pill

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Something I have come to realize with age is that in almost every situation, there is a downside.

There is a downside to being in a relationship, there is a downside to being alone. There is a downside to being married, there is a downside to being single. There is a downside to getting divorced, there is a downside to staying married. There is a downside of going to college, there is a downside of not going to college. There is a downside to having kids, there is a downside to not having kids. There is a downside of working, there is a downside of not working. There is a downside to being rich, there is a downside to being poor, and there is even a downside of being somewhere in the middle of rich and poor.

Darn, there’s always a downside? Well that stinks, right? Yes and no. It only stinks if you are under the illusion that there can be no downside. In our society that seems to be the expectation. Or the belief that a downside is “a sign” that it’s time to make a change, usually the opposite of whatever the situation causing the downside may be.

However, these changes are often made in reaction to the downside, without consideration to the downsides of doing something else, instead. Far too often people see change as the solution to a downside, but they do not consider nearly enough what the downside to whatever their new path may be. Once on it, the downsides become apparent and the dissatisfaction and desire to eliminate the downside sets in once again.

I call it the “if only’s.” If only I was married/single/divorced/had kids/didn’t have kids/had a degree/didn’t have a degree/worked/didn’t work/was rich and so on. If only, if only, if only…then I could be happy!

That’s where the option of acceptance and gratitude comes in, something people don’t seem to consider nearly as often as they consider radical change. Accepting that there is always going to be a downside can be actually very freeing. And it can help one make better choices, find contentment, and even be happier.

And of course sometimes the downsides of not making a change are greater than the downsides of doing different. Once all sides are considered, maybe change really is what is needed. In those cases, considering in advance the downside of all options can help make those choices easier. It’s not change that’s bad, it’s the overly idealistic idea that change will lead to a life without downsides. Well, it won’t. That doesn’t mean life can’t be better. But there will always still be downsides. Sorry.

Of course, the good news here is that also means there are likewise always upsides of every situation. And if the downside and upsides are also considered in tandem before making major changes, sometimes just considering the upsides can help one realize things are actually more good than bad. I think that in the majority of cases in life, this is true. And studies show that simply focusing on the upsides in life, rather than the downsides, leads to much greater life satisfaction no matter what the situation might be.

So when you find yourself focusing on the downside, telling yourself, “if only” things were different, then you would be happy/fulfilled/content/whole/etc. try looking at the upside as well as the possible downsides of that “if only.” Chances are good you are likely to discover all things considered, it’s not so bad after all. And if so, focusing more on the upside and less on the “if only” might be the best solution of all.

For where your focus is, there your heart will be also.

Let those who have ears hear.

Because Things Don’t Build Themselves, Sista!

03 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Red Pill

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Have you ever stopped to think about how all those roads you drive on everyday, and the electricity you rely on, and the operational phone and cell phone system, and those buildings, and microwaves, and bridges and even hairdryers were built? And who built them?

Men. Yep. By and large, men built them! Men who had conceived of, designed, created, and then produced and sold them. Truth is, those “misogynistic, bumbling, no good” men build civilization, and protect it, and keep it rolling along.

Now I am not saying women don’t do their part, and yes men are not having babies, but those are hairs we aren’t splitting here.

So what would happen to a world without men? Or a world where men have so given up on women that they just don’t care to build things, or fix them, or design them, or produce them anymore? Exactly how long until the toilets were overflowing, and the power was out, and a fire was raging, food supplies were gone, much less makeup or high heels, and there was mayhem in the streets? Yep. Not long. Not long at all.

I don’t know about you, sister, but I really can’t build things much past a pre-drilled, pre-assembled, all parts included kit — if that. I’d be lucky to get some curtain rods up if civilization ended.

“Educate yourself,” you may be saying. I have tried. I took woodworking class, and autoshop, and what I learned is that me and tools don’t mix very well.

In the years since I have also realized things don’t build themselves. They don’t build themselves at my house, they don’t build themselves in my town, they don’t build themselves in my state, and so on…

Men build things. Women need men to build things. Women need men to care about women so they will build things. All good reasons to be nice to men, show some appreciation, respect, and gratitude.

I know when I drive by a road construction crew these days I notice them — men. Men working hard. Men making civilization work. In all kinds of weather. In every season. Every day of the year.

To many women, men are invisible. Until their car breaks, or the cabinet drawer comes off the rail, or she can’t open that jar of pickles. She just assumes he will be there. But what if he wasn’t?

Men are actually a huge asset to our society. It might do us better to treat them as such. Because without men, things start to roll backwards, sometimes pretty darn quick.

So be good to the men in your life — we women need them, and their willingness and goodwill, to keep it all going and flowing and working.

Ooooom……consider it. Mind blowing, isn’t it?

Where would we be without men?

I hope we never have to find out.

Embrace Your (True) Girl Power!

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Fempire

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Over the past few years, I have been exploring the meaning of being female in a post-feminist world. And I have come to a very surprising (even to myself!) realization about “girl power” — it seems to mean the exact opposite of what I had always been led to believe.

Let me explain. I was raised in a world where “girl power” was defined as “doing what men do.” And I did. I took auto shop and woodworking classes in high school (along with only two other girls in each class), went to college, got a career, made good money, supported myself, started a business, and more.

I was opening doors, and for myself, thank you very much! I avoided things traditionally considered “feminine.” I wore unisex clothing like jeans and t-shirts, avoided “the domestic arts,” shunned girly-primping, wore flats, and told myself that I would, “be taken more seriously” for it.

Was I taken seriously? Actually I was, but not because I did my best to avoid anything “female” related. I was taken seriously because I did what I love and have followed my passions and put my heart and soul into everything that I did.

Well almost. I cringe to say, but I did not put my heart and soul into my marriage. Rather than be a wife in the traditional sense, I strove to emulate the supposed “marriage of equals.”

Long story short, that didn’t work out so well. For either of us. And I regret it. Not that it was all me, but if I am honest a part of it was. At least half. But what is done is done, that’s 7-plus years of water under the bridge now.

A few years ago I started looking at my life and wondering what had led me to the place where I found myself. I had executed the feminist script to perfection. But despite being practically the “single independent woman” poster child, I found the end results to be lacking. I was lonely. I didn’t “get it” when it came to relationships.

And so while exploring this angst, I stumbled across the red pill. As I read blogs and message boards populated mostly with men talking about men and women and relationships, I was shocked to learn men weren’t happy with this brave new world, either.

They encouraged each other to explore what it means to be masculine, to be a man, to do things men traditionally liked to do. This made me wonder, what would happen if I did the same, explored what it meant to be feminine?

So I did. And the results have been pleasantly surprising! Rather than find it drudgery and oppressive, I found that I like pulling an amazing loaf of fresh baked bread out of the oven, and that folding fresh, warm laundry can be surprisingly sensual. I’ve been potting up flower baskets and fluffing up my nest ever since.

While I have a ways to go, I have to say an increasingly neat and orderly home is a big improvement over my formerly half-assed, last ditch, and cluttered surroundings. Oddly, I have found the more beautiful I make it, the happier myself and my children are getting. And it’s been more sweat equity than shopping spree — I have found it doesn’t have to be expensive to create a home that provides cozy refuge from the world. It’s a work in progress but I am slowly editing room-by-room, getting rid of “stuff” and keeping only what I truly love. My girls are loving it, too!

I’ve also been playing with the traditionally feminine spheres of beauty and fashion. Again, this has all been on a budget, but with some creativity and a few great consignment shops, I’ve replaced much of the jeans and t-shirt wardrobe with flattering, feminine attire. I still have jeans and t-shirts, but now they emphasize (modestly and tastefully) my female form rather than disguise it. I wear skirts a lot more. I even ordered a pair of strappy summer sandals with (gasp!) heels. I got some shimmery make up and learned some new techniques for applying make up via online videos, and I have been painting my finger and toe nails, too!

Along the way I have redefined the meaning of “girl power.” I have been shocked to discover I find more joy in embracing my feminine side than I ever did trying to act more like a man than a woman. And yes, I am still taken seriously, maybe even more so!

To trying to be a man, I simply say, “Pfffft.” I’ll take the shimmer, and flounce, and channeling my energy into making my surroundings beautiful for me and mine over trying to be more like a man any day!

What do you think? Should we redefine the meaning of “girl power” to mean reveling in the power of femininity? Or is it better for women to act just like men?