Nibbled News

Invent A Patch To Save Some Marriages

If you made a list of the reasons why any couple got married, and another list of the reasons for their divorce, you'd have a hell of a lot of overlapping.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

This is an impassioned plea trying  to keep lawyers and divorce court costs out of the bedrooms and bank accounts of America.

Many marital conflicts are at times the result of conflicting emotional feelings and sentiments of confused and disgruntled couples and as such do not come under the direct purview of the judicial system. 

The time has finally arrived  for an enlightened populace to allow the  creative scientific community the opportunity to process and perfect a hormonal patch that disputing married couples can jointly use to save themselves from divorce and get their marriage back on track.

Scientific inventiveness , genius and creativity over innumerable decades has consistenly attempted to help man enjoy a carefree and productive lifestyle. The problems of female infertility, male erectile dysfunction, persistent indigestion and occasional bouts of embarassing flatulence have all been successfully handled.

If the problems listed above are hormone related then who is to say that emotional situations and tensions that eventually do arise between the most loving , compatible and closest of couples could not benefit from such a quick and inexpensive fix.

I appreciate the fact that many talented and well-known divorce court attorneys make their six figure salaries helping grieving spouses rectify an intolerable marital situation. Their efforts to comfort their clients is well documented and costly at the best of times.

The disputing couple would now make an appointment with a marriage counsellor who would take a proactive approach and recommend not only couple's therapy but also the marriage patch in the hopes of not only rectifying their current marital strife but also stave off the possibility of enlisting the services of a good family lawyer.

Members of the legal association, fearing loss of a substantial amount of income, would probably launch state by state class action lawsuits aimed at determing  the legality and the overall safety aspects of using the patch. Many lawyers do tend to get overly emotional and protective when their  lifestyles are threatened.

Human beings are ever changing vessels of emotions, sentiments and feelings. A patch designed to specifically help regulate or temporarily modify a couple's conflicting emotional levels would be a lot less costly and more effective than filing for a divorce and upsetting a couple's lifestyle and financial situation .

Jurisprudence can only go so far in affecting the way members of a society relate to one another as far as the law is concerned. Perhaps it's time that science lends a helping hand to couples trying to cope with the pressures and strifes of modern life.

Composite Dad As Important As Biological

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."  --  Mark Twain

This is the weekend dedicated to honoring dad. One weekend per  year is generously dedicated by society to publicly recognize and honor the man who somehow manages every day to support, protect, love and cherish his wife and children.

There is another genre of man who, though not biologically related to children, volunteers to become an important and involving factor in their lives  and selflessly dedicates a goodly portion of his free time to ensuring that these children are not dumped by the wayside of life and forgotten by a busy and self involved world. He is what I label a composite dad.

When a parent dies the family dynamic is disrupted socially, economically, familially and inwardly. At times the untimely death causes confusion , fear and uncertainty within the family. The stability and the very essence of the family itself has been shaken.

The remaining spouse struggles with her newly acquired status of widow while her children are now subjectively classified as orphans. The mother, now the newly designated head of the household, finds herself inheriting all the financial responsibilities that was once shared with her husband.

 Psychologically the children must resolve for themselves their new social status. Friends at school treat them as oddities at first sympathetic to their plight but then later realize the powerful impact a death can have on their very own family and lifestyle.

This is where the role of composite dad is so very important. He might be an uncle, a minister, a member of Big Brothers , who realizes the distraught family's need for some type of stability and reassurance.

He realizes that he will never replace the deceased parent but does his very best to ensure that the affected children are exposed to the many positive experiences and opportunities that life has to offer.

By his actions and attitudes he affects the children's definitions about themselves and their roles in the total scheme of things. The youngsters now have a real life mentor to answer their many questions and hopefully guide them on the right path to becoming happy and successful human beings.

I think that it is appropriate that this type of surrogate dad also be honored and acknowledged on Father's day. They are the behind-the-scenes people who try their best to bring happiness, knowledge and opportunity to children stuggling in an uncertain world.

If your own life has been personally touched by such an individual please do not hesitate on this day to contact them by telephone, card, email or personal visit and show them you appreciated all the efforts and love they selflessly offered you.

Happy Father's Day to all dads be they biological , surrogate or composite. You do make a very positive contribution to life.

 

 

 

There's Nothing Wrong With Doing Nothing

 

"A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts." - Washington Irving

These days it appears that many women who have chosen to become stay-at-home moms are ridiculed and harassed for making their decision to remain out of the work force. Many of their friends, family and mother-in-law(s) insist they get back into the active and lucrative employment market before it's too late.

Many of these women complain that their friends are all too eager for them to drop the concerned mom façade and get back into the job market where career fulfillment, personal development and financial rewards await them.

Friends and family continually harass them with questions regarding their day to day routines: don’t they ever get bored; what do they do all day; how do they keep their sanity; don’t they wish they were working at some type of job .

Women who have decided to be stay-at-home moms enjoy the freedom from stress and work deadlines that plague the rest of the working world. Granted that many women are often overwhelmed by the demands of taking care of a household and children.

But, many women relish the freedom and the opportunity to grow as a person and help their children develop as responsible adults in a home setting where mom is there to protect, support, nourish and guide them through the grinds and challenges of everyday life.

Many mother in laws can be unreasonable in their continuous demanding that their daughter-in-laws spread their wings, leave the familial nest and try to develop a career opportunity for themselves outside the family circle.

But essentially the women I spoke with recently declare vigorously that they are happy in their career choice and that their lives are that much more rewarding because they chose this life style for themselves.

Many women stated that they do not have to work because their husbands earn enough income to support their growing family. Considering the current job market with employment uncertainty and layoffs happening every day these women feel they should be applauded rather than criticized for their choices.

I have recently retired and wholeheartedly enjoy the new found sense of freedom that not having to work can offer a person. The internet and community college study-at-home courses offer stay-at-home people the chance to learn, grow, develop and enjoy their lives.

As the woman in the above video indicates it’s time to quit harping about and splitting hairs over the lifestyle she has chosen and focus more on the long term benefits to society her decision to raise her children will bestow to the community in the long term.

Empty Nesters Should Eject Their Adult Children From Homestead

An empty nester , according to one dictionary definition, is a man, woman, or any couple who have finally raised their children to adulthood and have seen them successfully leave the safety and security of the nest at last.

The children have finally grown, left the nest and are now out on their own hopefully becoming productive members of society with children of their own to raise , lives to lead and enjoy and career paths to develop.

Becoming an empty nester is truly a rite of passage, a major part of motherhood and at times a difficult transition stage of development for any parent to come to terms with and eventually accept.

This particular adult status , which admittedly is difficult for many parents, requires a psychological adjustment for all concerned. Parenting manuals maintain that becoming an empty nester is a big transition in life, much bigger than many folks had ever previously realized or anticipated.

One of the biggest challenges in being an empty nester ought to be trying to decide what to do with all the free time that naturally happens when you don't have your kids at home anymore. You and your significant other are now able to share and enjoy life together.

This could ideally be a time of self discovery when the parental couple are now able to rediscover life together without the many responsibilities that faced them during their children’s formative years. It could be a time of growth, travel and personal development.

For many couples attaining this new found identity only adds difficulties to their life plans. The downturn in the current economy has forced their now adult children to return home to the nest and seek food, shelter and understanding from their aging parents.

These twenty and thirty year old adults return home and now add their own financial burden to the couple’s well-planned and carefully structured nest egg. Their once adequate financial cushion against hard times is now rapidly being depleted by the added expenses.

These aging parents now face the difficult task of either supporting their adult offspring for the long term or else take the initiative and gently and politely eject their adult children from the nest.

The empty nest stage of life supposedly offered the couple new found freedoms, more storage space and the ability to play their music as loudly as they wished.

But the adult children returning to the nest now constricts their personal freedoms , quickly erodes their financial cushion and inevitably increases the stress felt in the family.

The once severed ties to the children are now hastily retied and day to day band aid solutions to the family’s new found situation only alienates and disrupts the empty nest lifestyle.

Whether this is a good or a bad thing will be determined in the future, but there is no doubt that these days the role of an empty nester is not easy to define. It is a life situation that even younger couples should plan for and not wait until their last child has left home.

The increasing economic, social and personal challenges we all face affect out lifestyles and the way we see ourselves in the world. Planning ahead early in life for unexpected life changes and challenges will offer options and alternative courses of action to follow.