the end...

This has been a great class and a great summer, thank you for sharing all your knowledge with us. With this class and all my experiences I will hopefully be prepared for parenting and marriage when the time comes. I find that along with your lectures and websites finding websites on my own help with my understanding of the topics discussed in the class. (http://parentingteens.about.com/od/parentingtroubledteens/Parenting_Troubled_Teens.htm) This website is a perfect example. Again thank you for everything!

Last week

So without getting into too many details, last week was a rough week for me. It was rough for me but it was also rough for my parents because they were right there along with me. This brought me to realize what it is to be a parents, there is a lot more than what I originally thought. I screwed up on Monday last week, and it was like a normal screw up, but for some reason my parents didn't discipline me but they supported me. My mom was very upset that she couldn't have been there with me to protect me from what happened, and that means a lot. I know there is an unconditional love because of the emotion she showed when she said that to me. My dad was a little upset with me but he told me that everyone makes mistakes and that I just have to learn from what happened, which I have and I will continue to do. It was a difficult week for me to deal with but with the support and love my parents showed me, even though I messed up pretty big, I was able to learn from what happened and I will not make the same mistake again.

Vacation

So this week I was on vacation with my family, and my uncle and his kids were there. His two kids are very disrespectful and I hate to see it but I feel like he handles it the best way he can. I don't know if there is some way to prepare for a child who is disrespectful but I hope my child is not like that. I found this website (http://www.ehow.com/how_2357518_deal-disrespectful-step-child.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art) and it is an interesting way to deal with disrespectful children. It says you have to correct the child not discipline them, which I don't know if that would work, but then again I'm nowhere close to being a parent. It says that you need to expect respect which I agree with because sometimes I see my uncle and he knows that they are going to be disrespectful but he should just expect them to be respectful and deal with them not being.

raising a child

How you raise a child will play a huge part in how that child will turn out as they grow older. I feel like my parents raised me right and I hope I'm showing them that they did from the way I do things and how I act. (http://www.parenting.com/article/Toddler/Behavior/easy-ways-to-get-child-to-behave) This is an article about how to make your child behave, and it talks about building the bond between the parents and the children, and also about giving them independence early on so they can have confidence in themselves to be able to do things. It also talks about blaming the house, having house rules that need to be followed and I think that is a great idea because then the rules will be laid out and the child will know what they can and cannot do.

Abortion

As you probably got from my discussion post, I am not a fan of abortion. I cannot see how a person can go through killing, yes it is killing, a helpless child. I understand that a pregnancy resulting from rape is not ideal and that many people believe that abortion is okay in that case, but I have not decided where I stand on that issue. Maybe that is just because I do not know how a rape victim feels and the emotions of it, but I cannot say right now where I stand on that issue. So, that being said I am not going to talk about rape right now, just about consensual sex that results in pregnancy. A person should know what consequences could result from sex and be prepared if anything happens. People, if they do not want to get pregnant will take the "easy" way out by having an abortion. This is murder and it is not healthy. I came across a website about the pros and cons of abortion, and personally I think all the pros are stupid (http://tiger.towson.edu/users/bpahl1/pros%20and%20cons%20page.htm). A pro is that it will be regulated and women won't die because of illegal unsafe abortions? That is just ridiculous, people are saying the women may die, but think about it, in every abortion someone dies...why not care about that life? Another is giving the woman the rights over her body, and women should have the rights to do what she wants with her body, but there is more than her body involved in this decision. There is one about saying if abortion is outlawed more young people will be having children, but this is not necessarily true if the education about sex is taught in the correct way. Our education methods have become askew and we as a lazy society would rather deal with the problems in an easy escape route instead of fixing the problem where it began. Abortion is murder in my opinion and I cannot see how someone could do that to a child. The song "Brick" by Ben Folds Five is about how the singer and his girlfriend got an abortion in high school (http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Brick-lyrics-Ben-Folds/07EE220659B6F4A548256DE9002E3913), the entire song is about it, other than the chorus, which was written by the drummer and it seemed to fit. But he says that it was a sad thing and that anyone who has gotten an abortion will know what the song is about because feel will feel an emptiness no matter what their situation is..."Now that I have found someone I'm feeling more alone Than I ever have before." The feeling that you have killed someone will not go away even though you may think it's helping you out because you couldn't support a child or whatever the reason.

Guilt

After thinking about a person's past and revealing that to a new relationship I started to think about my past and if I would feel guilty about it, and I don't think I would. I am not ashamed of anything I have done and I would hope that my future wife would be understanding and we could both forgive each others' past. I came across this article (http://www.iamnext.com/sexandlove/guilt.html) and it talks all about guilt in relationships. How just saying "If you love me you would do this or that," and it talks about what making a person feel guilty does to your relationship. My favorite part of the article is when it says "loving someone requires forgiving the past and letting go," this is absolutely true in my book and even though it may be hard I feel like it is something that has to be done to maintain a healthy relationship. The article goes on to say that in a relationship the two individuals should be free to be who they are, and if one person keeps bringing up the past to guilt someone, they are not able to be free.

Sexuality

Sexuality has changed so much since years ago, I mean I haven't seen the change personally but I can tell that it has obviously changed. Just by watching television, listening to songs, watching movies, and even just reading articles and books it is portrayed in such a way that the entire focus is on the pleasure part of sex and not the passion and the love. Like on this website, http://www.askmen.com/love/, there are questions like "does size matter?" top 10 fantasies, and a whole section about sex toys and also tips to improve your sex life. The section that was most shocking to me is "how to end it like a player," what is that? That is absolutely ridiculous, and even though I am a guy I have to say that most men are disgusting when it comes to sex. They have no respect for women or the act of sex. I don't know if it is entirely the media's fault, but they are not helping, and I feel like religion is too quiet on the topic to change anything. I do not have an answer to change this, but the movie 100 girls makes a lot of good points about things that should be changed. There are two guys in the movie and they are in a feminist class of some sort and they bring up many differences between men and women, how if a guy is promiscuous he is praised, and if a girl is promiscuous she is considered a slut. I feel like this is absolutely true and absolutely wrong, and one of the reasons the main character says is the problem is that there are too many -ists in the world, and I feel like that is completely true, and if there weren't so many racists, sexists, feminists, etc. there wouldn't be as many stereotypes about everything including sexuality.

religions, religions, religions

There are so many different religions out there, and all of them have their different pros and cons about marriages and relationships. I am Roman Catholic but I feel like it is beneficial to pull parts from all religions when it comes to making your way through life and all the relationships that come up, especially marriage. Conflict is something that comes with any relationship and you need to know how to deal with the conflict when it arises. Empathic listening helps a lot, but I also find that websites, like http://relationship.lifetips.com/cat/64813/managing-conflict-in-relationships/index.html, give good tips and help walk a person though relationship conflicts. Most of the website I came across were all about dealing with conflict in a marriage situation which is where I see the most trouble being, maybe not the most trouble but it's definitely the most important time to resolve a conflict. I am currently working on being a better person when it comes to resolving conflicts and right now it seems like I have improved my skills, so hopefully I can continue to improve them this summer and for the rest of my life.

Benefits of marriage

I read an article today about the benefits of marriage (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_12_99/ai_71704809), and I was surprised. The first thing the author talked about was the benefit of money, not partnership, not family, not the love, but money. The sharing of the money is important but if I were writing this article it would not be the first thing I talk about. There were mentions of how married men live longer and how if helps women have someone to do things with at all times. I did not really find this article to informative or interesting, but the reason I am writing about it is because of the last line, "If there's a marriage in which there's sharing and equal participation in the decision-making, they both benefit equally." This is important because a marriage IS about partnership and having a companion, it is not about superiority or one person doing the bulk of the work in the relationship. And as the quote says, if the duties are shared equally then both parties will benefit equally.

religion and me

I am a Catholic and I have always been raised a Catholic. Me and my family have gone to church every single week since I was born and I have sadly fallen away from this routine when I moved away to college. I attend mass sometimes but not on a regular basis, which always upsets me when I head home and go to mass again for the first time in a while. So this upcoming semester I am going to try a reasonable attempt of going to mass every other week, and hopefully I can increase the number once I get rolling.

When I was about 16-18, I'm not positive when, but I started becoming very interested in Buddhism and I seriously talked to my parents about becoming a Buddhist, which they didn't really like. I was attracted to the mediation and the laid back sense of the religion, no having to attend a weekly ceremony and you still have a god that you look up to. I eventually decided to stay with Catholism and maybe just leave more time to pray and do a form of meditation, and this has seemed to work. One other thing I did not like about Catholism is the church, I cannot stand going to mass and being asked for money for a number of different things. I do not mind giving money to charity and helping people but when the church asks for money for themselves and other things I cannot stand that.

I do now still think of myself as being religious, because even though I do not attend mass every week I still believe in God, pray, and do good to others when I can, and I believe those are some important parts of being religious. I definitely want to be married in the Catholic church. I believe that being married in the church creates a sense of oneness with the husband, wife, and God, and that is a bond that is stronger and more sacred than anything else. And even though I don't agree with all the church's views I will sacrifice my beliefs and take my children to mass every week. My friends and I were actually talking about this last night and I said the same thing. I want my kids to grow up going to Catholic school and going to mass every week, because even if they decide it is not for them there are priceless lessons that they will learn just by sacrificing about an hour a week to go to church.

First Post

So this is my first post for my class, I'm just seeing how this works because I've never had a blog before..