The Power of Dads

Fatherhood is a lot harder than people make it out to be. Many may think that dads have it easy, and that moms do all of the real work. This is true in the fact that the mom takes care of the baby, but then who is supposed to take care of the mom? That's where the father comes in. It is his responsibility to help with the dishes, make sure the mom has time to take showers, cook/order takeout, and many other things the mom used to do, but can't anymore because she has to take care of the baby. Not to say the father can never do things like wake up in the night to help with the baby; if it just needs a diaper change or a soothing, he can get up. The problem comes when the baby needs to be fed and mom is the only one who can do that. So the father must step in with other responsibilities to allow the mother time to make up for lost sleep.

However, it is important to note however that if the father cares for the mother too much he may end up resenting her and that is not a good things either. The dad still matters and deserves respect too. It is important to make sure that he is still a part of decision making and raising the baby. He should not be pushed aside and replaced by the grandmother in the raising of the baby, which is not an uncommon occurrence. The father helped to create the child so he should be allowed to have a voice in raising it as well.

This is why it us so important for the father to take paternity leave. He does not need as much rest as the mother does and the baby will not depend on him as much as it will depend on her, but he still needs to help the mother with her own needs. Also, if he is away at work, there will be no time for him to be able to bond with the baby. Another advantage of paternity leave is that if the father is present, it is much more likely that his voice will be heard.

This is not to suggest that if you do not take paternity leave you will be a terrible father. My dad was unable to take paternity leave because when we were born he and my mom were very young and could not afford that much time off. However anytime he came home from work, no matter how tired he was, he would ask my mom what he could do to help. Often times she would have him take us and keep us occupied somewhere else so she could clean, cook dinner, or even just regain some of her sanity.

For the longest time my mom and dad would divide up responsibilities in a traditional way; my dad would go to work and earn money, while my mom took care of things around the house. However, recently my dad has been taking some time off of work so he helps out around the house a lot more. This has lead to him being a lot more present and has lead to a happier home.

My dad definitely helped around the house before this, he just helps a lot more now because he is less stressed and has less on his plate. I think that this is important to note; when you are stressed you are a lot less helpful than you are when you are not stressed. So if you want a happy family, not just "happy wife, happy life", work to create a low stress environment within your home.

Hard Work and Money Management-Keys to Success

Up until the last few hundred years, families spent a lot of time working together to build a life. Farming was the typical lifestyle, so the dad and sons would work out in the field planting crops and taking care of animals, while the mom and daughters worked inside the house doing laundry and preparing meals. Then the industrial revolution came. Men would go off to work in factories, so a lot more responsibility fell on the women of the house. It did not help that often times children went off to work in factories as well, so there were even less hands to help around the house.

Nowadays, children do not work in factories, but they tend not to help out a whole lot around the house. However, this was not the case in my family. In my house we all have chores. We have to clean our room, make our bed, bring down our laundry, tidy our bathroom, and clean up our areas around the house everyday. We have kitchen jobs that rotate every week. So one week you unload, the next you load, then you vacuum, the week after that you set the table, and finally you clear the table. In addition to these jobs, every day you have another area of the house to clean; from vacuuming a room, to cleaning a bathroom.

Even with all of these jobs, we never got paid. My parents called it "free on the job training". They said that they were teaching us to work hard so that way we would be good employees when we grew up and got part-time and full-time jobs. That is exactly what happened. I started working at Panera Bread three-and-a-half years ago, and I got my two younger two brothers a job there as well. There is now a standard at Panera that "The Snows" know how to work. Before the younger of my two brothers started working there, my bosses kept asking me when he would be old enough to start working so that way they could have another great worker. Then, when I asked how he was doing, my boss said "you can tell he is a Snow".

My parents did not buy us a lot of "extra" things. We did not go out to eat a lot, we got toys on Christmas, and we did not have fancy clothes.They provided what we needed, but not always what we wanted. And I could not be more grateful for that. This lead to us working hard to find ways to make money so that way we could go out and buy fun "stuff" for ourselves.

Not only that but it taught us to be frugal with our money. They taught us to give 10% of our income to tithing, put 40% in savings, and 50% in spending. This has made paying tithing and saving money easy since I have done it all of my life. Since I knew how to be frugal with my money it was very easy for me to make a budget in my money management class a year ago, that I still use on a regular basis today.

I am so grateful that my parents taught me everything that they did about the importance of hard work and money management. If it was not for them, I would not be on my fifth semester of college, with a car and a credit card, completely debt free. I am so blessed that they taught me everything that they did, and I hope that I can pass that knowledge on to my own children.

Communication: A Great Foundation For Any Relationship

Everyone knows that good communication is essential to a good marriage, but many people do not know how to communicate properly in order to have a successful marriage. They think that just because they talk about their problems, they will be fixed, but this is far from the truth. In order for you to properly communicate, it is good to use the five secrets of effective communication.

The first three steps all involve empathy. To begin, use a disarming technique. Find one true thing about what they said to you, no matter how terrible the things that they said to you were there is bound to be some truth behind them, and acknowledge that they are right about that part of what they said. This helps you become vulnerable, and in turn helps them to put down their defenses and become more vulnerable too. Next you want to express empathy. Show them that their thoughts and feelings are valid, by saying that you understand what/why they are thinking what they are thinking, and feeling what they are feeling. Then you want to ask inquiring questions. This allows you to get more details about why they are feeling this way, not only so you can better understand the situation, but also so you can show that you really do care since you are asking to know more.

The next step involves assertiveness. Now that you have acknowledged what they are feeling and heard their side of the argument, it is your turn to give your side. However, this does not mean you get to have a turn at being aggressive. You spent all of this time creating a safe environment, and you want to continue to have one. No matter how cliche it sounds, the best way to do this is through "I feel" statements. However, this is more that just telling them how you feel. You want to say "when" this happened/happens, "I feel/felt" an emotion, "because" of these reasons (thoughts), "so I would like" for this to happen in the future (hope, desire). By expressing yourself in this way, you make your feelings and thoughts clear, without hurting anyone else in the process.

Finally you want to show respect for the other person. You do so by using a technique known as stroking or affirmation. You make sure that they know that you are listening to them when they are talking, and not simply waiting for them to be done talking so you can talk again. Convey that you think that their feelings are just as real and important as yours. Actions speak louder than words, so be sure to have positive and friendly body language and tone. Finally be kind to the other person and make sure they know you respect and care about them.

All that people really want in this life is to be heard. They want to know that people understand what they are feeling and that their concerns will be addressed. I know in my life there have been a lot of times where I really just want someone to listen to what I have to say, even if they can't do anything to help solve my problem. Of course it is ideal to talk to someone about your problems that can help you fix them, but if you can't find that, it is great to even just to have someone there listening to what you have to say and telling you "that sucks". If we can all just do this simple task of making sure that people's voices are heard, we will all be a lot happier.

Coping with Stressors

We all experience stress in our lives. However, many people think that stress is a bad thing, when it is actually a good thing. It makes you stronger, like putting weight on your muscles and bones when you walk. It becomes a problem when stress turns into distress and you start complaining about your problems because you cannot handle them. If you use stress to grow and develop, it makes you stronger, but if you do not grow from it and instead you let it consume you, it will destroy you.

People often times allow these thoughts to overtake them; the main culprit behind this is overthinking. Dr. David Burns came up with the concept of "The Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking", where he defined ten things that cause us to have thoughts that consume us when we face a crisis. The first is all-or-nothing thinking which is where someone thinks that because they did one thing wrong, they are a lost cause. Something else that causes this is overgeneralization which is when someone thinks that because something was an outcome once, that will always be the outcome. People may also experience a mental filter which is where one negative event is all that they can think about, and their life becomes defined by this single event. Another form of twisted thinking is discounting the positive. This leads to people thinking that even when they did a good job, they could have done better, so they ignore the fact that they did do a good job. The next way someone may experience twisted thinking is by jumping to conclusions, which is when you assume something is negative when it is not true. This is then split into two other categories: mind reading and fortune-telling. Mind-reading occurs when you assume people are thinking negative thoughts, but in reality they are not. Fortune-telling is when you assume that something bad is going to happen. 

Magnification is when you make your problems huge and your accomplishments tiny. Emotional reasoning is when you think that because you feel a certain negative emotion, that determines your reality. Another tool people use are "should statements". You think back on a certain situation and think about what you should have done instead of just accepting that what happened, is what happened, and that it is going to be OK. When people label, they tell themselves over and over that they are something negative (a looser, worthless, a jerk) instead of saying that they did something negative. Finally, personalization and blame is when you say that something is all your fault even though it is not. You take all of the blame, even though you only deserve a little blame, if even any.

I have found myself using these forms of thinking in my own life. One of my major stressor is the fact that I will go over conversations that I have had with people to see if I said anything I shouldn't have said. I will use should statements and think I should have done something differently. I will feel guilty about something that I said, so I will label myself and say things like "I'm the worst". If something goes wrong in a situation I will blame myself and say that it is my fault that it went wrong. Even if I said a lot of the right things, I will only focus on the one dumb thing that I said. When I say all of these negative things, my worldview becomes negative and I can often times be consumed by this. Finally, the biggest things I am guilty of is jumping to conclusions. I always think that I know what others are thinking during our conversations (mind reading) and do not say things because of how people will react (fortune-telling).

I did not realize that I did all of these things until I read this article. However now that I realize what I do, I can work harder to stop myself for thinking this way so I will not feel so much distress.

Infidelity: Not Just Adultery

Many people believe that infidelity only involves cheating on your spouse physically, but it can be so much more. It is also possible to cheat on your spouse emotionally and this is perhaps an even worse form of cheating. Cheating on your spouse emotionally can come in two forms: attached and detached. Detached emotional cheating involves fantasy; the cheating spouse will look at other people or images of other people and desire to be with them. They will not act on any of their thoughts, but this causes them to become distant from their spouse as they long for the fantasy and not reality.

Attached emotional cheating is probably the worst form of cheating. It involves another person whom the cheating spouse actually knows and spends a lot of time with. They become incredibly close with this person and start to go for them for support, advice, comfort, and other things that they should be going to their spouse for. Now this does not happen all at once. It is a slow process, but one that takes place on a very slippery slope. It typically starts out with the cheating spouse befriending someone of the opposite gender. They may do so through work, church, school, Facebook, etc. They may have met this person before or after they were married. It really does not matter how, when, or why they are friends with this person, what matters is that they spend alone time, or perhaps text regularly, with this friend of the opposite sex and begin forming bonds that really should only be shared with their spouse. After all, isn't that how must marriages begin? With two people talking and getting to know one another, one on one, in person and over text? Your spouse is supposed to be your best friend, whom you share everything with, so having someone who is not your spouse filling this role, is emotionally cheating on them. Even if you do not realize it.

That is the most dangerous part of emotional cheating; often times people do not even realize they are doing it. It is not so obvious like adultery is. When you are doing physical, sexual things with someone who is not your spouse, you are bound to realize that this is wrong. However, when you go and get lunch, one on one, with a coworker of the opposite sex, you may think you aren't doing anything wrong. You may think they are just a friend and it does not mean anything, but to your spouse it absolutely does. They deserve your undivided affection and emotional support.

Now the question is, how do you avoid emotional cheating when most of the time it is not obvious? The first step is to build your marriage on loyalty and commitment. If you are loyal and committed to your spouse and nobody else, you will not find yourself vulnerable to cheating. You also must love them with all or your heart, might mind, and strength. Someone who is totally and completely in love with their spouse would not even consider cheating on them and so they would be more aware if they were to find themselves emotionally cheating. Better yet, they would not find themselves in such a situation to begin with. Finally one of the best things, albeit also one of the hardest things, you can do when you get married is cut out all friendships with those of the opposite gender. If you have no friends of the opposite gender, there is no vulnerability to having your friendship with that person become stronger than your friendship with your spouse.

Your marriage should be the most important thing in the world to you and if it is, you will not be afraid to do everything you can to avoid not only physical, but also emotional infidelity.

Don't Blow Your Life Savings on a Wedding

People very often think that weddings have to be a grand affair. You have to spend a ton of money to have the perfect dress, venue, food, music; the list goes on and on. This is the beginning of the rest of your lives right? Shouldn't you start it out with a bang? In my eyes, this is a very common misconception. Sure it is fun to have a big wedding, if you have the means to do so and that is what you really want, but the problem is that people will make a lot of sacrifices just for this one day.

The first thing people might do is wait to save up so that way they can have a really big wedding. So they will stay engaged for a really long time until they can save up enough to pay for their big day. It may seem like this is not a big problem, but what can happen with some long engagements is that the couple will start to cohabit. I already talked about a lot of the problems that can arise from cohabiting last week, one of which is that people get comfortable where they are at. They get used to living together but separate (living in the same house, but with separate bank accounts, problems, etc) and when they do eventually get married they may not blend their lives as much as they should to have a strong marriage.

If people do not want to wait, but still want to have a big wedding they will go looking for the money in other places. One of these places is a bank. The problem with going to a bank to get a loan for your wedding is that you start out your marriage in potentially crippling debt. This means that right from the beginning you will be fighting about money and working constantly to try and pay off your debt. This is no way to start your marriage. You should be spending time together, building a life together, not constantly fighting and working.

Another place, and perhaps an even more dangerous one, is to go to either of your parents for money. Now this creates a lot of problems. First of all you are forever indebted to the parents that lent you money. They get first priority when it comes to whose house you go to for holidays, who you will live closest to, and perhaps even what you name your kids (depending on how much then spent on the wedding). This is because if it was not for them, there would not be a wedding, so they get to dictate much of your married life. That also means that they get a big say in a lot of the wedding decisions. Now this is especially dangerous because wedding planning should be a bonding experience between the husband and wife, not the bride and her mother. It is the first big test of how they will work together as a married couple and if they do not go through it together, they will start out their marriage with a wedge between them. Finally a big problem is when you are married you are supposed to be independent. So the longer you rely are your parents, the longer it will take for you to gain that independence and really build a life with your spouse.

Overall, you should focus on saving up and using your money for things like buying a house, not a wedding. A wedding is just one day, but having a strong foundation for the rest of your lives is critical. You can still have a great wedding even if you do not spend a ton of money on it. There are plenty of ways to save money and have an inexpensive wedding. I promise that if you do so your marriage will do just as good, if not better, than if you spent a fortune on your wedding.