A gal I know has been struggling with her teen and pre-teen kids lately. They won’t listen. They disobey. They ignore what she says. They do whatever they want. And they have no qualms about treating her with disrespect, contempt, and open destain.

The other day, after her 14-year-old daughter rolled her eyes, said, “whatever,” stomped off, and slammed the door, her mother once again started to wail that she “just doesn’t know what to do about these kids.”

Like a light clicking on I suddenly saw it, her kids were treating her exactly how she treats her husband!

Yep, a very possible cause behind today’s lack of respect for parents and authority in general could be traced back to the fact that not only do women today want equality (and special rights on top of that) they more and more just want to run the show.

A woman who shows respect for her husband as the leader of their tribe, and who herself defers to his authority is showing her children that life includes heirarchies. That sometimes life isn’t a democracy.

Egads, talk about an unpopular idea these days, everyone not being equal! But it’s simply a fact of life, even for grown ups. The teacher is in charge. The boss is in charge. The police have authority. And if you really want to see something scary, try arguing with a judge.

Not fair that men always get to be the leader, one might say? Well men would tell you they don’t. Men naturally fall into a hierarchy rank in every situation, without them even discussing it. One will be the “alpha” and the rest will follow suit. In most cases it’s situational, a man who is the alpha in one group may not be in another, and so on. It’s not about opression, it’s simply about natural order. Men have always understood this, even they recognize not everyone can be in charge and everyone can’t be equal. It’s just life.

So moms, if you want your kids to listen to and respect you, to follow your lead, and to  avoid run ins with authority in general, the best way to achieve that is to listen to the man in your home and the men in your family, respect their authority, and be a good role model of a cheerful follower yourself.

Yep, I really did just say that!

Let those with ears hear.

Today’s post will be a bit different from the rest, this one will be an interactive one where readers share their “dating don’t” memories of disastrous dating moments from days gone by.

This is in the spirit of public service, helping hapless daters avoid such mishaps in the future!

Stories of friend’s or family dating don’ts, or even your own flubs on dates, are welcome, too!

Frequent commenter Fuzzie suggested some dating wisdom directed at women on another blog that I felt deserved a post on the topic: Instead of looking for every reason to eliminate a potential suitor, focus instead on all the positives.

I have many times watched friends turn away an otherwise really great guy for rather minor reasons. Ironically I have watched these same friends put up with all sorts of BS from less great guys. Go figure!

So while you don’t want to mislead or string guys along, it’s also wise to not judge a book by his cover too quickly. A long “must have” list describing your perfect Prince Charming may keep you from finding a great match that’s not what you expected, but turns out to be even better!

Let those who have ears hear.

I have written about my children’s babysitter before, a very wise and sensible girl of a local religious sect with Scandinavian origins. It’s similar to Amish but with electricity and automobiles, but not music, television or pop culture.

It has been fascinating to get to know her and learn about her world because as an “outsider” to their rather closed off community I have had a rare chance to see inside a world untouched by feminism and modern life up close.

One thing that struck me about Samantha was that unlike most 16-year-old girls these days, she was embracing the seasons of a woman’s life as traditionally lived.

Girlhood: Largely carefree and as part of a large family there are always others to play games with. Without television and other media distraction, these girls play house, tag, build forts, and explore the great outdoors. Children do not expect to be entertained by their parents, but to make their own fun. Children are still raised to be seen and not heard, and are expected to honor their mother and father. Education is central, as girls are expected to master a basic education, along with helping mom at home with housekeeping, cooking, and tending to other siblings. Even as a young child, these girls are learning skills to help prepare them to be good wives and mothers.

Young woman: As she enters the teen years, education continues to be a focus, as these girls aim to complete their education in preparation to marry. My babysitter, for example, participated in a program where she attended community college her last two years of high school, earning her high school diploma and two year degree the same week! She then transferred to a local commuter college and completed her BA in early childhood education by age 20. Dating is not allowed during the teen years. These girls socialize at family gatherings and church functions. As they approach 18, they begin formal courtship in search of a husband, all well supervised and approved by both families first. The goal of courtship is to find a spouse, not to date for fun. Most girls marry by 18 or 19. My babysitter married at 19 and continued her education that first year while preparing for her next life season.

Marriage and motherhood: Birth control is not practiced by this group, and in fact the goal is to have a first child before the first wedding anniversary. From there these women will have another child every year or two throughout her reproductive years. Children are seen as a blessing, not a burden. Families of ten or more are not uncommon. Once mothers, these women do not work outside the home but often supplement the family income by babysitting, refurbishing and reselling antiques and home decor items, or managing the administrative tasks for her husband’s or family’s business. Otherwise life is one big play date, with these moms getting together with their kiddos to socialize after her house chores are done. Home and hearth are top priority, her own ambitions are secondary to her primary jobs as wife and mom.

Late adulthood: By age 40 or so, the childbearing years are complete and as children grow up there is more time for personal ambitions and many of these women will start some sort of work from home enterprise during these years. Still her focus is her growing brood and preparing them for marriage and adulthood but life is fun and she enjoys the company of her young teen and young adult children, who unlike most teens and young adults, honor and adore their mother.

Golden years: After her children are grown, a woman might devote her time to volunteering or supporting a charitable cause or church endeavor. Many spend time mentoring young women or new moms. Grandchildren start arriving and her home is always full of family and company. She and her husband have lived carefully and have built a solid financial foundation for themselves free of debt so life is good and relatively worry free. Surrounded by her brood and the life she has built, she now enjoys the fruits of her life well lived and is honored and revered by her community.

It’s certainly very different than the life path of a typical girl and woman in our modern world, but having seen it up close I truly question if we wouldn’t be better off as individuals and as a society by taking some lessons from this path less travelled. Rather than the oppressive gloom and doom I expected to see thanks to my own rather feminist indoctrinated upbringing, I have seen great happiness and contentment in the women within this community. They have a happiness and sense of purpose often lacking in today’s modern woman. Imagine that!

What season of life are you on as a woman? How does it compare the the path above? What do you find appealing, or not, about this concept of a woman’s life seasons?

Let those who have ears hear.

A post at another good blog got me wondering, maybe the secret to staying married isn’t fixing or eliminating all of the relationship struggles, but simply riding the tough times out, instead?

Or another way to think about it is like a white water rafting adventure: The last thing you want to do in the rapids is jump or fall out of the boat!   By the time you reach still water, rather than jumping out, chances are you’ll want to simply paddle along and enjoy the peaceful calm before the next stretch choppy water.

See, life can be like that. Sometimes the “problems” in marriage and relationships aren’t really about the couple as much as they might be unhappiness or strife caused by other factors: a dead end or draining job, more bills than money, the trials parenting can bring, lack of quality couple time, lack of outside support, family of origin baggage, and so on. Sometimes there is no quick fix, or even no immediate fix at all. What’s needed is simply time and preserverence.

That seems to be what a study on marriage that tracked unhappy couples over a five year period says. It found that the couples who were happiest didn’t necessarily “solve” their problems, they just stuck it out. Even more telling, people in couples who split were less happy five years later than those who didn’t!

Consider the following study findings:

• Two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce or separation ended up happily married five years later. Just one out of five of unhappy spouses who divorced or separated had happily remarried in the same time period…
• Many currently happily married spouses have had extended periods of marital unhappiness, often for quite serious reasons, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work reversals. Why did these marriages survive where other marriages did not? The marital endurance ethic appears to play a big role. Many spouses said that their marriages got happier, not because they and their partner resolved problems but because they stubbornly outlasted them. With time, they told us, many sources of conflict and distress eased. Spouses in this group also generally had a low opinion of the benefits of divorce, as well as friends and family members who supported the importance of staying married.
• Spouses who turned their marriages around seldom reported that counseling played a key role.

So ladies, in marriage remember this simple but all too often overlooked strategy for dealing with issues and struggles — often you don’t have to “fix” those problems as much as you just have to ride out the rapids to calmer waters. And whatever you do, don’t jump out of the boat!

Sadly, in my family’s case this has certainly proven true. A year after I ended my 12 year marriage, my ex stopped drinking, finally left a work situation that had been a big part of his (and therefore our) unhappiness, and things evened out. Nine years later, I very much question if rather than creating additional conflict by continually focusing on “fixing” the problems, maybe had I simply hung in and been more constructive they might have resolved themselves? I will never know, but trust me it’s not something I would wish on anyone to wonder. If sharing my experience can help another, perhaps it is not in vain. I have many regrets. Don’t be like me. Don’t learn this the hard way.

Let those who have ears hear.

Surely you have heard the rally cry of the modern woman, “You go, girl!” On the surface it seems to be an endearing term of pro-female encouragement. But is it?

Many times it can actually be exactly the wrong advice, especially when what a friend really needs to hear is, “Woah, girl!”

Women tend to naturally empathize and try to build consensus when communicating with each other. And in and of itself, this is not a bad thing. It can be very nurturing.

However in today’s culture, there’s a lot of bad advice floating around, advice that destroys families, lives, and women themselves. Such advice is often given with a “You go, girl!” positive spin, like it’s the path to happiness and enlightenment rather than instability and destruction.

Before I stumbled upon the red pill and read accounts from the male point of view about just how astray “You go, girl!” can lead a woman, I will admit I had not stopped to really consider the downside of this seemingly upbeat advice. I had many times (even at bible studies!) sat with groups of female friends and listened when women who talked about struggling in their otherwise healthy marriages with boredom and undefined unhappiness and contemplating starting over were told, “You go, girl!” when in reality the issues were completely fixable, perhaps even just a normal ebb in her overall life flow. How destructive.

Another time, “You go, girl!” can be bad advice is when a woman is encouraged to “find herself” via sleeping around or hooking up with men out of lust or as some sort of self-validation. How dangerous. I have even heard women advise married women to do so, behind their spouse’s back. Really?

There’s a big difference between truly supporting a friend and foolishly encouraging her on a path of self-destruction. So before you reflexively go along with the “You go, girl!” party line, pause and ponder what she really needs to hear. And if it’s “Woah, girl!” don’t shy away. You could be the only one who tells her what she really needs to hear, not what she or others are telling her to justify a poor decision.

Let those who have ears hear.

A gal I know through work who has been toying with the idea of frivorcing her husband is once again “unhaaaapy.”

Why is she unhappy? In short because her family is coming undone at the seams. And yet she fails to see the obvious, that she herself is smack dab in the middle of it.

She simultaneously berates her husband for not being the head of the family while at the same time fighting him tooth and nail to be sure he isn’t. Had she listened to him and let him lead rather than run interference, her 17-year-old daughter would not have gotten pregnant with a boy she barely knew on purpose out of rebellion, her son would not have dropped out of college because his bossy new girlfriend told him to or else, her 14-year old daughter would not be on the Internet meeting boys who claim they are 17 and making out with them in cars, and her 7-year-old son would not be living in terror at the constant threat of losing his dad if his mom follows through on her ongoing threats to divorce.

Her husband has tried to take action to prevent all of the above disaster from happening, only to be thwarted by her sticking up for the kids and telling him not to be so strict.

And yet as she wails about the state of her family, her own role in the fiasco continues to elude her.

Ladies, don’t be like her. Don’t be so darn headstrong you refuse to allow your man to be the head of the house. The only outcome of such behavior is dysfunction and disaster. If she can’t accept or respect hierarchy and authority, how can she expect her children to? That’s right, they don’t listen to her just like she doesn’t listen to him.

Maybe put another way, perhaps like me you have worked for both male and female bosses. Which was the best leader? If your experience is anything like mine, the male bosses are far more even keeled and on point.

If my friend had any sense she’d swallow a huge dose of her pride, hand the keys and the wheel of their family to her husband, and step out of the way so he can do his best to save their family before it all falls apart. I doubt she will, but I am hoping against all reason that she surprises me.

Once again, it’s all in the Book.

Let those who have ears hear.