Pick up as you go

I am surprised by the many times I’ve seen hits on some internet sites that need ratings on their looks. My niece was a victim of this very sad trend. She said this was all some girls at school ever talked about. Gathering votes on their looks night and day and getting into groups seeking approval for their physical appearance.

A parent came to me years ago because her daughter had been affected by a similar incident. The daughter had skin asthma so she had scabs when she first entered school. Sometimes, children can really be mean, but you never really know who to blame, in some instances. Apparently, one of the more popular girls at school started whispering to her friend about the daughter of my one-time client, and then started becoming more verbally abusive only because she did not fit in the way most girls at school did.

I believe this to be very traumatizing on the part of the parent and the child both. Imagining them having to live up to that and growing up with that kind of condition and other children not understanding the situation can really do your self-esteem some serious harm. The child later on decided to just stay home and not continue going to a regular school. She’s very lucky to have parents who can afford to put her through home schooling because of this incident. But what about others who cannot afford to find a solution to some problems?

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the child, but at the same time I wanted her to at least try harder to resist what some kids could do all for approval and social reassurance, but she insisted that she stayed home with her mother. Then again, what’s a mother to do but to listen to her child. Sometimes we can only do so much to protect our children, so we really have to make them experience some things that will help them face the inevitable when the future comes, but often we are thrown off-guard by the circumstances that we mistake to be threatening enough to actually make a bigger mistake cutting all ties with the outside world.

One has to fit in, in order to survive. It may seem hard at times, but there will always come a time wherein one will have to ask for another person’s help, and vice versa. Keeping a responsibility to be open to any possibilities that can happen to our surroundings is an exercise to a good relationship with yourself. To expect yourself to be useful to others is a sign that you know you deserve that level of reciprocation.

I know that it is very impossible to eradicate situations like these, when one is being ostracized for his/her condition - especially if it is something medical - because they happen on a normal basis, but if you are a parent, you may as well be aware and teach your child that sometimes physical looks can only go so far in this world because we all know that what matters is what’s inside, and that we should seek approval on the better standards that this world has to offer and it is found in helping other people or at the very least, making new friends, building new ties and reconnecting bridges.

Getting married is something that men aren’t so hot about the way women are. Why? Because we’ve heard stories of what can happen in a marriage when all we want are the simplest things, right? But we are not alone. Stats show that women are more concerned about the prospective hardships to come in a marriage which includes being able to take care of the entire family, most especially when they are expecting a child.

The conditions are really hard for both men and women and finding an equation to balance both parties’ efforts are close to impossible. Marriage is something that should take you to the next level, not assure you that everything will be easy. Sooner or later a new addition to you and your wife’s lives will come and that’s your child, who will be needing your support as well as your wife’s. That can be a confusing and tough but truly a rewarding feeling, when accomplished well, but one should be in the lookout for possibilities and things that may hinder a healthy family relationship.

It becomes a delicate situation when your wife suddenly gives you a 180, becomes cold and distant when you need intimacy just like before. Or simply when you just want to be with them. I’ve gone through years of work with surprising stats on husbands that crave for their wives’ attention and most often get denied, that produces cheating as a result. Cheating is something that is caused by situations that couples are exposed to, although the reasons may be different from one another, majority of them had a lot to do with not being able to communicate with their spouses, the right way, not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t know what’s going on.

Men and women are built differently, and more often than not, wives put more effort into trying to understand the simple wiring we have when it really should be the other way around — they’re the complicated ones, anyway. When failure is present in this field, some bounce back easily because they know exactly what to do. But what about those who are completely alien to the concept? It stems out from just one day and then to the next and getting used to this kind of situation will carry over and snowball your relationship into a dark well. Minutes more into it and you’ll find yourself doing the unimaginable. Thing is we could’ve done something about this, pride set aside only if we had at least a clue on what to do. Here are only a few of what we should know about. Things we won’t ever be able to understand, but good enough to tell us what we might need to know as husbands.

Postpartum/Postnatal Depression - is a clinical depression that is associated with giving birth. This includes not being able to respond to normal needs and at times can be mistaken as just a disconnection between couples. The length of the depression may vary and it can wear you out. So before it does, seek help. Disinterest in the usual activities and excess in eating or the opposite are only some of the symptoms, as well as fear of hurting the baby, or simply fearing the baby alone. Be wary when the cycle continues for more than a week.

Physical Pain/Discomfort - Carrying a child in your womb for 9 months and being responsible for any of the things that may happen to the baby is a huge responsibility. We have work, yes, but if you can imagine the discomfort that women feel after giving birth (some even work and deny themselves rest) — and we can only go as far as a description because we aren’t women — then we shouldn’t argue with the fact that they handle a much harder task as it is not as mechanical to just nurture a child and at the same time ensure the safety of everyone around you as well as being concerned about their health. These are only a few things that our wives go through. Some may not even be able to take care of the home as expected, but these pains are definitely present, especially after childbirth.

How You Say It really counts. Instead of saying, “Can you get me something to eat?”, say “Let’s get something to eat”. It makes them feel like they’re part of the picture and not just a fixture in your home that will make you anything you want just because they can. The tone of the voice is a major part of this — you won’t believe the difference it makes to a woman when a man speaks to her “with respect” as they put it.

Initiate Time-out with your wives. It makes them happy spending time-out with you. A big 43% of women say that they don’t bother initiating vacations, getaways or simple dates with their husbands because they THINK their husbands can’t be bothered. While they try to think ahead of us, why not prove them wrong if we really want to spend time with them, anyway?

These are simple things, little things that my even change the way we think about our wives, but can produce great results. If something isn’t working right, that automatically directs you to a problem. This isn’t nipping the bud, its a simple guide for us to make sure we act the way we should.

We ARE built differently, and that is why I chose to write about this article today. The need for communication is very hard to bridge and I thought, why not share some of the things we deserve to know? After all, we’re not all too insensitive now, are we.

Hi to you all, so I’m feeling much better now as my wife and I had just returned from the doctor. If you have been reading lately, you would see what happened to my wife a few days ago where she had some bleeding. I really thought it was going to be the end of our child, but thank heavens that the baby’s heart rate has improved since then. There are miracles waiting to happen.

On that note, I feel really good that I invited some friends over to have dinner at my house. I had the best time because my best friend from Glasgow came over with some good news. His wife is also pregnant and it just felt great to have someone to talk to these things about. We have really changed since our college days wherein we didn’t care about anything else but ourselves.

Now times have changed and things are really new. So new I’m still starting to get used to them. Even though I know it would be a hard thing to pull off – I even think it would take years.

Work is doing fine, my clients from 2 years ago who went for a marriage counseling are now doing so much better. The husband who has gone to real anger management has improved greatly. His wife tells me that he knows how to handle himself. People do change you know, it just takes a lot of patience and with that usually comes from when you love a person.

On the other hand, I have dealt with a new client who is suffering from domestic violence. The husband is now with the police, but what more worried about is her mental health. We shall see in the next couple of sessions. I hope therapy helps her.

Yesterday we had a short trip to the doctor. My wife had some bleeding after taking a shower and we got alarmed. I’m scared. Really scared, but I do not have control over these things happening now. I think I’m just at the right pace where I am surrendering myself to what can happen, though I know I shouldn’t be thinking about it that way.

I remember the time when my mother had a miscarriage when I was five. We were all excited about the baby, so just imagine how my mother felt when she lost it. She had a slight accident, where she had slipped in the shower – my dad wasn’t around, too. He was at work that day and I called an ambulance and then my dad. I could hear the fear in his voice.

Now I probably have that same amount of fear, but I know there’s still hope. The doctor says the chances of the baby surviving were small, but I’m keeping my act together hoping it would change. I have to be strong for my wife and for the baby she is carrying inside of her.

Meanwhile I keep staring at these father and son photos… It inspires me to test myself, my patience and strength.

Personally, I’ve nothing to share as of yet, but I can’t wait until I see my son. My wife and I were at first resenting in finding out if our child was a girl or a boy, then one day she said, let’s go check. Well I’m exhiliratingly happy because I’m going to father a boy. I’ve always wanted a baby boy because I personally missed out on my dad because he worked too hard. Eventually the marriage between him and my mom got rocky and me and my siblings had problems trying to get things together because of this.

All I know is that I’ll be the best dad in the world for my son. One of the entries in this competition I liked in particular, it was the one about picking up his son a bit earlier from school to go take a look at cars and what not just for a father-son bonding time. I really liked that. I was never close to my father that’s why… but I’ll make sure that my son gets close to me, and get the things I never got to have.

Now that my wife’s getting close to giving birth, I can’t help but ask myself some questions. I’ve gone from funny to ridiculous just because I spend too many hours thinking of things — anything related to family, fatherhood and what not

So I remembered some of the things my parents told me. Of course they were lies. One of them was, if I get a cold and if I don’t cough out the phlegm, I’d fly up the ceiling and never come back down. My god, was my mother creative or what?!

Among the few other lies I had been told when I was a kid were: If I get a big cut somewhere then whatever I ate for lunch would come out there. My grandmother was half-Filipino so they had all these superstitions on everything. One of them too was if I made an ugly face, chances are an evil wind will brush through me and my face would get stuck that way, forever. Hell I was so freaked out when I was a kid.

Now that I’m going to have a kid too, I’m getting a bit conscious of what kinds of lies to tell him. Definitely the cut and the food coming out of it is out of the question, I mean that’s pretty graphic for a child to keep in mind, so No.

What about you, what were the lies your folks told you growing up?