I want to revisit the idea of fatherhood.
I will probably split this into two posts because I have a LOT of venting to do here, So please watch for the next post coming soon...
Now technically in my life there were four guy's whom I ought to have been able to expect to provide "fatherly guidance" for me. unfortunately they all seem to have fallen short.
Many of the ideas I have on how to raise kids (as far as they come from these "examples) are based on "that's what NOT to do when raising my kid/s".
As a young boy growing up one of the things that none of them ever did was create a bond of trust with me so that I could go to them when I had a question or worry or anything.
That MIGHT have been, in part, because of my mother's influence, and in part it could have been some stubborn selfishness on my part, I admit that I was a little spoiled at times, But looking back I would have to say they also to a man displayed selfishness of their own.
Back then as a son and now as a father I believe that if you are going to be the DAD you HAVE to do the work of the dad! and none of them did.
I barely knew my "biological father" since he and my mom got divorced before ANY of my memories kick in. but from what I have heard he wasn't to great a guy back then, and he was even physically abusive.
I would forgive him if I remembered any of the things that people claim he did.
But as it is I simply state this as a point/matter of fact.
I did meet him once when I had grown up, and I suppose we got along ok, but I never got to know him in any "meaningful" or "fatherly" way.
The time when I did meet him, after growing up, There was only the one time and he never indicated any interest in ever seeing me again. it was a meeting of strangers and that was it.
With the Second Man my mom placed as the male role model in my life, the relationship could be termed more akin to sibling rivalry.
He was too busy "fighting me" for my mother's attention to really turn into a good role model.
Mind you there were moments when he did try, ( he once gave me a peice of advice on how to handle my finances..."you need to make sure that you spend most of your money on your truck or your girl". IN THAT ORDER.)
Of course when he and my mom got divorced the relationship between the two of us dramatically improved.
The one good thing I can say he taught me was how to come to terms with your adult child when that child is now in position to make all his/her own choices. In other words how to respect the maturity of your adult child/ren.
Looking back on it, I really Wish he had taken the time to take me fishing once in a while, or other one on one moments to try to create that bond between a father and a son, Although I did enjoy horseback riding, and so did he.
I wish he would have taught me how to treat a woman PROPERLY, I wish he had taught me the simple little every day moments in life... How to shave, How to know who I am, how to be brave when everything around is going to... well bad places, how to face adversity, how to be a good husband and father. Instead I learned most of those kinds of things by hit or miss, and I missed a LOT more than I hit.
As for the third man... My mom uprooted us to move us clear across the country to be with this guy, when he turned out to be looking more for a slave than a wife she turned to me to be the man helping her in life and THAT led to him eventually threatening my life... LITERALLY.
I was told, as we were planning to move back to our home in Arizona, that "if [I] EVER was in the area again, either [he] or one of [his] sons would hunt [me] down and kill [me]".
He blamed me for the rift that HE caused between him and my mom, and threatened me with bodily harm. (I was about 16 at the time.)
That is enough for today... keep watching for the finale. It is a bit of a doozy... partly because up till now everything is past tense... in the final installment we will deal with... "current events" as it were.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
HISTORY ALL OVER AGAIN:
I recently thought of something. There is a classic quote, Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
And it has occurred to me that it is clear the people in our government and even a lot of the people in society in general seem to have forgotten most of our country’s and world’s history.
I have heard the current U.S. sociopolitical climate described as being just like early socialist Germany 1930’s or even America of the depression and dustbowl pre WW2 era, or America circa 1860 or America about 1774ish…
This made me wonder if it isn’t just that we have forgotten so MUCH history as a society that we are now doomed to repeat All of it All at once.?
Think about it, what if we are doomed to repeat that which we forgot and we forgot ALL of that… well what is left for us to do but fight WW2, the Civil war and the Revolutionary war all over again while going through the great depression too…SIMULTANEOUSLY! Now there is a thought that makes me shudder.
And it has occurred to me that it is clear the people in our government and even a lot of the people in society in general seem to have forgotten most of our country’s and world’s history.
I have heard the current U.S. sociopolitical climate described as being just like early socialist Germany 1930’s or even America of the depression and dustbowl pre WW2 era, or America circa 1860 or America about 1774ish…
This made me wonder if it isn’t just that we have forgotten so MUCH history as a society that we are now doomed to repeat All of it All at once.?
Think about it, what if we are doomed to repeat that which we forgot and we forgot ALL of that… well what is left for us to do but fight WW2, the Civil war and the Revolutionary war all over again while going through the great depression too…SIMULTANEOUSLY! Now there is a thought that makes me shudder.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Diet? NO!
recently I actually linked two different events that I wanted to blog about but until I talked with my wife I did not realize how linked they may actually be.
The reason I linked them was because I heard them both on the news and they both disturbed me. the first one was my alarm about a new dietary practice called carb rinsing.
As best as I can tell the idea is that you fake your body out by making it think you are eating/ drinking carbs but before you actually swallow the item/s you are "consuming" you spit it out. your body will respond by thinking that you ate them so it has to use the "energy" from those carb's therefore you burn the energy represented by those carbs without replacing them thereby burning fat.
The first problem I thought of was... " anytime you try to fool your body, you are heading down a dangerous road." think about it the reason why this would work is because your body "knows" how many carbs are in the item you are "eating". it had to learn this information somehow, most likely from experience. so now the experience it will have is the "carbs I used to get are not going as far... I'm going to have to change the way I burn/use them." that becomes defeating to the problem you are trying to address.
The other problem I saw thought of was, What about all the food you are wasting this way? I mean come on only people who have a total disdain for food (and big pockets) would think that it is OK to waste food by chewing on it and then spitting it out. Especially, and yes I know I sound like a parent here, when there are starving children and people all over the world.
How troublesome is that?
Maybe instead of worrying about the newest diet we ought to simply eat sensibly all the time and exercise regularly.
The other issue was when I heard a news blurb about how girls are hitting puberty at a younger age. the report stated that the age of puberty is down to 7 years old for some of these kids.
I was disturbed by this because I have three girls. but also immediately disturbed because the oldest is 6.
But, like I said, my wife thought of an aspect hat links these two issue even closer.
My wife is a proponent for breast feeding. And all our kids were raised that way. and the thing that bothers her is that too many mothers jump to formula too quickly.
Now don't get her wrong, she understnads the issues facing some mothers out there. she knows that breast feeding can be painful (she's done it she knows what it's like) and she knows that there are some out there who cannot do it for whatever reason.
But her point on this issue was that she believes that the prevalence of formula has led to this new issue of early puberty.
Her point... Women are using more formula, which means more children cannot handle the Milk based formulas (just by the law of averages) so more children are being raised on soy based formulas. as we have seen, soy increases estrogen or estrogen like properties in the body, estrogen is a major factor in women issues like puberty. so my wife believes that the probability is that these children are reaching puberty at such A young age because they are being fed soy based formula at a young age. and I think her reasoning is sound.
So we really ought to watch what we eat a little better and stop trying to make new ways to use food that fool the body... because as sneaky as people might be their bodies are not so easily fooled.
The reason I linked them was because I heard them both on the news and they both disturbed me. the first one was my alarm about a new dietary practice called carb rinsing.
As best as I can tell the idea is that you fake your body out by making it think you are eating/ drinking carbs but before you actually swallow the item/s you are "consuming" you spit it out. your body will respond by thinking that you ate them so it has to use the "energy" from those carb's therefore you burn the energy represented by those carbs without replacing them thereby burning fat.
The first problem I thought of was... " anytime you try to fool your body, you are heading down a dangerous road." think about it the reason why this would work is because your body "knows" how many carbs are in the item you are "eating". it had to learn this information somehow, most likely from experience. so now the experience it will have is the "carbs I used to get are not going as far... I'm going to have to change the way I burn/use them." that becomes defeating to the problem you are trying to address.
The other problem I saw thought of was, What about all the food you are wasting this way? I mean come on only people who have a total disdain for food (and big pockets) would think that it is OK to waste food by chewing on it and then spitting it out. Especially, and yes I know I sound like a parent here, when there are starving children and people all over the world.
How troublesome is that?
Maybe instead of worrying about the newest diet we ought to simply eat sensibly all the time and exercise regularly.
The other issue was when I heard a news blurb about how girls are hitting puberty at a younger age. the report stated that the age of puberty is down to 7 years old for some of these kids.
I was disturbed by this because I have three girls. but also immediately disturbed because the oldest is 6.
But, like I said, my wife thought of an aspect hat links these two issue even closer.
My wife is a proponent for breast feeding. And all our kids were raised that way. and the thing that bothers her is that too many mothers jump to formula too quickly.
Now don't get her wrong, she understnads the issues facing some mothers out there. she knows that breast feeding can be painful (she's done it she knows what it's like) and she knows that there are some out there who cannot do it for whatever reason.
But her point on this issue was that she believes that the prevalence of formula has led to this new issue of early puberty.
Her point... Women are using more formula, which means more children cannot handle the Milk based formulas (just by the law of averages) so more children are being raised on soy based formulas. as we have seen, soy increases estrogen or estrogen like properties in the body, estrogen is a major factor in women issues like puberty. so my wife believes that the probability is that these children are reaching puberty at such A young age because they are being fed soy based formula at a young age. and I think her reasoning is sound.
So we really ought to watch what we eat a little better and stop trying to make new ways to use food that fool the body... because as sneaky as people might be their bodies are not so easily fooled.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Thinking on the edges.
Well here is an interesting issue for me.
Last Saturday I was up late totally absorbed in a Terry Pratchet book. One of the things his main character in the book was dealing with was trying to think of something that was lurking on the edge of her thought.
It made me think of quite an interesting point, how many times have I also done the same thing? I have often had thoughts on the edge of my mind which I could not quite grasp.
I wonder if that happens to others... I think it does.
But then I wondered why people don't search for those thoughts. most of us, myself included, tend to just write off the issue and don't chase those thoughts down and I wonder why.
I think we all are trying to escape too much. If you think about it our society has been pushing for a long time to make us all easily distracted.
I am aware of my escapism tendencies, I have always looked to reading to escape. Sci Fi Fantasy, mystery... didn't really matter which, as long as I could use those books to get away from it all.
Today there are a lot of other choices to distract and escape. And at each stage it gets more invasive and total.
It started with Radio then it moved to movies, then T.V. then Video/s then DVD's now Blue-ray's. Then there are also the video games... it started with the Commodore's and now you have Xbox and Wii and PlayStation, the graphics are being touted as "awesome" or "lifelike". And they are but this isn't necessarily a good thing.
Maybe as a nation we need to grow up and learn how to face ourselves again.
Last Saturday I was up late totally absorbed in a Terry Pratchet book. One of the things his main character in the book was dealing with was trying to think of something that was lurking on the edge of her thought.
It made me think of quite an interesting point, how many times have I also done the same thing? I have often had thoughts on the edge of my mind which I could not quite grasp.
I wonder if that happens to others... I think it does.
But then I wondered why people don't search for those thoughts. most of us, myself included, tend to just write off the issue and don't chase those thoughts down and I wonder why.
I think we all are trying to escape too much. If you think about it our society has been pushing for a long time to make us all easily distracted.
I am aware of my escapism tendencies, I have always looked to reading to escape. Sci Fi Fantasy, mystery... didn't really matter which, as long as I could use those books to get away from it all.
Today there are a lot of other choices to distract and escape. And at each stage it gets more invasive and total.
It started with Radio then it moved to movies, then T.V. then Video/s then DVD's now Blue-ray's. Then there are also the video games... it started with the Commodore's and now you have Xbox and Wii and PlayStation, the graphics are being touted as "awesome" or "lifelike". And they are but this isn't necessarily a good thing.
Maybe as a nation we need to grow up and learn how to face ourselves again.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
What a week!
well this last week was quite the doozy. If you read my last post you know what was going on then, but after that post I got a call from the babysitter I had planned for. She said she wasn't going to be able to help out. So even though our 10th anniversary was last Wednesday, we are going to have to go out to dinner this next week instead.
Ah well
Also had some fun dealing with a little more illness as well.
But hey we are all still alive so...
I suppose we had a good weekend, I wish I had gotten something better for my wife but apparently that wasn't going to happen... something I ordered wasn't sent, but at least I wasn't charged for it either.
And a lot of the other things I looked at were expensive ad I wasn't sure if the wife would be o.k. if I bought them. I still suffer from the scars of a time when my dad, wanting to do something nice for my mom, got reamed by her for spending money on the piano he bought.
But all in all I am looking forward to the next week. I have a couple of plans lined up this time and about three babysitters to contact if the first bails... at least I hope I do, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that you know.
School starts soon for the girls and tomorrow we have to meet with a representative of Megan's preschool. that should be fun.
Hope all is well with you, until the next time...
Ah well
Also had some fun dealing with a little more illness as well.
But hey we are all still alive so...
I suppose we had a good weekend, I wish I had gotten something better for my wife but apparently that wasn't going to happen... something I ordered wasn't sent, but at least I wasn't charged for it either.
And a lot of the other things I looked at were expensive ad I wasn't sure if the wife would be o.k. if I bought them. I still suffer from the scars of a time when my dad, wanting to do something nice for my mom, got reamed by her for spending money on the piano he bought.
But all in all I am looking forward to the next week. I have a couple of plans lined up this time and about three babysitters to contact if the first bails... at least I hope I do, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that you know.
School starts soon for the girls and tomorrow we have to meet with a representative of Megan's preschool. that should be fun.
Hope all is well with you, until the next time...
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
what next?
Well now today isn't being very good to me.
This morning I had planed on several things that I needed to get done but unfortunately they are not working out too well.
At the top of my list I have a problem with a portable DVD player that I received this past father's day.
Barely two months old and it quits working.
It was supposed to be a replacement for the one I had bought before it. That one broke after only three months. they both came from the same seller and if I do not receive satisfaction on this issue I will probably post who they are here and in my other blogs and go on to form a group on Facebook since that seems the in thing right now. But until then...
Faith woke up sick this morning, that was troubling and when I looked into my Blogs here I discovered that the background I was using on one of them had been deleted and I had to restructure that blog. So I have been dealing with those issues all day, (Faith being Ill redoing my blog/s, etc...)
And then I fell asleep which was nice, if short, when I woke up I realized I had not put away the leftovers from my lunch from last night. When I went to do that I found that one of the ice-packs in the lunch box had sprung a leak and was literally ALL over everything in my lunchbox.
As I was in the process of cleaning that up I went to hang my lunch box out to dry in the shower and discovered that my NEW bottle of body wash had taken a header from it's storage space and now all the "soap" is covering the shower floor.
I guess to sum it all up I would appreciate your prayers.
Of course, there is more!
What I find most interesting right at this moment is that I am fairly o.k. After looking at all those things that have gone wrong I can still think I am better off than I ought to be and better off than many others. So I guess that means there is a praise report in there too.
Well I better get a little more sleep so until I see you again...
Catch y ou on the flipside.
This morning I had planed on several things that I needed to get done but unfortunately they are not working out too well.
At the top of my list I have a problem with a portable DVD player that I received this past father's day.
Barely two months old and it quits working.
It was supposed to be a replacement for the one I had bought before it. That one broke after only three months. they both came from the same seller and if I do not receive satisfaction on this issue I will probably post who they are here and in my other blogs and go on to form a group on Facebook since that seems the in thing right now. But until then...
Faith woke up sick this morning, that was troubling and when I looked into my Blogs here I discovered that the background I was using on one of them had been deleted and I had to restructure that blog. So I have been dealing with those issues all day, (Faith being Ill redoing my blog/s, etc...)
And then I fell asleep which was nice, if short, when I woke up I realized I had not put away the leftovers from my lunch from last night. When I went to do that I found that one of the ice-packs in the lunch box had sprung a leak and was literally ALL over everything in my lunchbox.
As I was in the process of cleaning that up I went to hang my lunch box out to dry in the shower and discovered that my NEW bottle of body wash had taken a header from it's storage space and now all the "soap" is covering the shower floor.
I guess to sum it all up I would appreciate your prayers.
Of course, there is more!
What I find most interesting right at this moment is that I am fairly o.k. After looking at all those things that have gone wrong I can still think I am better off than I ought to be and better off than many others. So I guess that means there is a praise report in there too.
Well I better get a little more sleep so until I see you again...
Catch y ou on the flipside.
my new blog schedule
Hello all.
I am so sorry that I have not been following up on my blog/s. the good news is that I will be tring to do a better job of it. I think there will have to be a schedule though. For my general blog I will try to post three or four times a week. The politically incorrect and Christian blogs though will be a once a week option.
It seems that for me I get so caught up in things that I tend to forget these things. (or I get so tired of being online that I give up before I get to the blog/s. so I will try to change that up.
I also sometimes cannot think of anything g to post. So I will have to switch on my brain a little more often. But I do want to post regularly and in such a way that it is pertinent and of value to my readers.
Thank you for your patience as I get my self sorted out.
Your’s faithfully…
Colt!
I am so sorry that I have not been following up on my blog/s. the good news is that I will be tring to do a better job of it. I think there will have to be a schedule though. For my general blog I will try to post three or four times a week. The politically incorrect and Christian blogs though will be a once a week option.
It seems that for me I get so caught up in things that I tend to forget these things. (or I get so tired of being online that I give up before I get to the blog/s. so I will try to change that up.
I also sometimes cannot think of anything g to post. So I will have to switch on my brain a little more often. But I do want to post regularly and in such a way that it is pertinent and of value to my readers.
Thank you for your patience as I get my self sorted out.
Your’s faithfully…
Colt!
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