Will I get to stitch today???

In the interests of fairness, I think we need to do a much better job of educating our children about just what it takes to raise children, because a lot of them just have no idea what they're getting into until it's too late.

Elizabeth

I dunno where the word 'stud' comes from. I think it's the old word for a stallion and so a stud farm is one where a stallion lives to serve mares and breed from them. Anyway, a horse stud is where horses are bred. Usually each stud concentrates on a single breed, eg. Arabian, Thoroughbred etc.

Y'can't mush all over foals! They have a tendency to grow much bigger and so you have to make them realise early on that standing on your hindlegs and boxing with their handler will go over like a lead balloon. Like anything (kids, dogs, even mules), it's all about learning to be disciplined and to behave well so you're a pleasure to be around. Erm... I'm talking about the foals here, not you! LOL!

It's an interesting concept. I don't think I could be quite as extreme as that, although I *hate* and *detest* the way animals for human consumption are often treated. I don't have a problem with killing animals for consumption, but I do think it's evil to put them through the slightest bit more stress and fear than is necessary. Don't get me onto chickens and pigs.

Hee! Sounds like St Francis and the sermon to the birds! You'll find that if you go out and sit in the middle of a paddock, after a very short while every animal in the paddock will come up to check you out. Calves are the funniest (they have such goofy expressions on their faces), but horses can be funny as well. The most astounding one I've seen is ostriches! If you just stand by the paddock fence and wait quietly, they'll all eventually come racing up to you in a thunderous herd so that you think they're about to flock all over you! (It's scary!) Then they stop dead, just short of the fence and poke their beaks at you with great interest. Amazing! They have the most astoundingly long eyelashes and extremely expressive faces, like old ladies wearing pince-nez spectacles.

And when they go to the dunny, it's even *more* amazing! Being so tall, the - er - ostrich-drops have quite a long way to fall. Even so, they manage to achieve a perfectly round, symmetrical arrangement that resembles nothing so much as a green Lemon Meringue Pie (complete with soft peaks)!

ROTFLROTFLROTFL!!! In DD's ballet school, there was only a single pas de deux couple, both of whom were extremely self-satisfied and obnoxious. The boy was the worst ham ever spawned and the girl was so toffee-nosed and awful: she wouldn't even speak to the younger kids, all of whom idolised her (since she was the Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the school).

Well. In the annual concert, Scott and Kira were in the middle of the final (and most important) act, a romantic pas de deux in which the final pose would consist of Kira flying into Scott's arms, whereupon he would slowly lower her into a deep poisson (the fish-dive one where the ballerina's face is lowered almost to the ground while her feet are held high above the danseur's head).

Heeheeheeheehee! When Scott lost his balance and Kira faceplanted into the floor, there was audible applause from nearly all the mothers in the audience. LOLOLOLOLOLOL! One of life's Precious Moments!

She did, yesterday. Told me to massage it harder. The sad thing is, it doesn't look like a bruise, more like a strip of really ingrained *dirt* across my leg. People will think I'm not clean! =:-0

Currents run deep at dance schools, don't they? Talk about drama...I dread the pre-teen groups. All those raging hormones and many are unpleasant to be around, even if they turn out to be lovely later on. Fortunately, our school doesn't tolerate too much in the way of obnoxious. There are certainly obnoxious kids there, but oddly enough they don't tend to get plum roles ;-) I will say, however, that lifts make me tense. Even with the best training and intentions, sometimes stuff happens...and it's not always the lifter's fault or something under the lifter's control. The liftee's technique makes a huge difference. I just don't want to be on the receiving end of a screaming mom who's upset her little pwecious has been dropped. Fortunately, few of the kids with "those" mothers make it into partnering roles. Thank goodness. Only another week or two until the madness starts again....

Best wishes, Ericka

It's too bad there isn't anything else to do about it. Glad it was just a bruise and the dr. didn't think it more serious. And if someone can't tell a bruise from a smear of dirt, tell them they need new glasses.

Around here, if a bruise lasts too long, it's usually because of (his) diabetic condition, or (my) being a kltuz and repeatedly banging the same area. Of course, I bruise pretty easily, and a whack on the arm that shows below my T-shirt sleeves always makes him comment that someone is going to think he's beating up on me.

-- Carey in MA

Yeah. I agree! You don't get married (or hook up) in order to have babies. Babies come because you have a true commitment and they are born out of your love. Well... that's the ideal situation, IMHO.

However, I also agree with what Dawne said about life just happening to people. You can't predict things and plan for them or even know what you'll do when disaster strikes. You can only do the best you can on the day. And, you can even be showered with excellent advice from people who know much better than you - and *still* refuse to take it because you're only human and believe you know yourself better than anyone else.

I was lucky to have had a great family where my selfless Mum taught me how to mother my kids well. Not everyone's that lucky. If you haven't had a great Mum, then how are you to know what good parenting consists of? You can see that other kids don't behave as well as yours do, but unless you know what to look for, how do you figure what good parents

*do* to prevent bad behaviour. A quick frown or raise of the eyebrows might be all you see, but there's more to it than that and it's not always apparent to someone who hasn't got a clue.

The family that lives opposite us is loud and aggressive and angry all the time. They have very public fights in the street and they often involve hurling of insults and beer bottles. The kids look on with eyes like saucers and all they see to model themselves on is a Dad with glazed eyes and a Mum waving a cricket bat! When it comes time for those kids to parent, what do you think they will do?

They'll do the best they can with what they know.

It takes a lifetime of good upbringing to be a good parent. You can't suddenly get a book and learn how to live a good life and parent well. Only good example and a *lot* of non-judgemental help can change this, I think and our society just isn't geared for that kind of charity.

I think we need to do a much better job even before children raising children becomes an issue. We should be teaching sex education and birth control methods in our schools. In a perfect world abstinence would work all the time, but this isn't a perfect world.

Lucille

ROTFLMAO!! Oh Karen! I wish I'd had you whispering in my ear when I was a teenager and thought I knew it all! If everyone were as carefully considered and well-prepared as you suggest, it'd be a much better old world, I'm sure.

I have a sneaking suspicion that people are a just a bit more spontaneous than that, though. They get all hot and sweaty. They don't always have Good Judgement and Citizenship on their minds. And, being human, they make mistakes for which they will later have to pay.

My DSD is in *agony* right now because her birth control didn't work and she's pregnant. She's also got a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her boyfriend, the love of her life, has suddenly run off with someone else. Everything she hoped for herself is down the toilet and she has no idea which way's up. AFAIC, she was acting in a responsible and considered way right up until the pills stopped working. What now? Well, we'll all live to see. Having been in *exactly* the same place myself, my heart is bleeding for this lovely kid and if she needs anything I can give her, it's hers! I'm not interested in what she should have/could have/might have done. I'm only interested in helping her be happy and well again.

Oh. And the baby, of course. I'll be a granny! ;-D

(Whistling happily as I go off to find 'Sewing for Babies'...)

I think we'd do even better to teach that sex doesn't *have* to be purely recreational and that the *best* sex is had in a meeting of two spirits. While I don't for a minute think you can expect people to abstain from sex (it's too hard-wired, biologically), I don't understand why today's kids suddenly need to be so very sexually oriented and Doing It so early!

Why is that? Is it because of overtly sexually loaded marketing? Or is it something we, the Baby Boomers and Harbingers of the Sexual Revolution left in our wake? Wish I could work it out.

I honestly don't get why twelve- and thirteen-year-olds need to be rogering each other! Don't they have Xboxes and iPhones to be playing with? When they eventually marry, what kind of sex will they have then? Will they be able to achieve the deep, lasting satisfaction that comes from Making Love or will it only ever be rogering because that's the way they've always done it? Will their marriages last because they were founded on mature choices made with sex as only one element of the equation? Or, will their marriages be brief and frequent because it's only rogering until that gets boring and something new is needed?

I dunno. Somehow, I think a lot more work needs to be done on teaching our kids how to relate deeply with people, not just collide with them in daily life. If they were all busily caring for each other, somehow I don't think these irresponsible and selfish choices would be happening.

Thank you, Trish. Thank you, thank you. It's all too easy for those of us who aren't parents to judge those who are. It's all to easy, in fact, for any of us to judge others without really knowing or living their circumstances. So thank you for this.

Elizabeth

Oh Trish! Good for you! I wish more young women had someone like you in their lives!

Elizabeth

The result of all those one and two child families, with the two kids quite close in age. Not as many kids who were "mother's little helper". My grandmother was #2 of 9, with #9 being 14 years younger than #1, so DGM knew all about diapering and burping and spit up before she had her first one.

I think you and I are talking about the same timing. Part of why kids don't practice birth control is because they think it won't happen to them or that it's not such a big deal to get pregnant. I think we need to do a better job of letting them know that it *is* a big deal and I think that more needs to be done to make *both* participants responsible for any "results." I know that I was abstinent much longer than the girls I hung out with because somehow I was SURE I'd get pregnant the very first time. I didn't, but the thought sure was an effective deterrent for a lot of years.

Elizabeth

Same scar that I have had on my knee for 33 years (mine is ground-in blacktop from the tennis court). Wear long skirts that cover it. If you must wear something shorter, cover the black mark with foundation makeup. Used to make the ladies at the makeup counter very confused when I'd tell them I didn't want the foundation to match my face, because that's not where I was going to put it.

You were older than I, and would have swatted me away like the annoying little pre-pubescent pest that I was. :)

Depends on the parenting. The girls in our dance group knew that teen pregnancy would have two immediate consequences: (1) they'd be offstage for the duration, (2) dear old dad would ensure that neither the girl nor the young man responsible were able to sit down for a week. They weren't sure which was worse, but were sure it wasn't worth the risk. They might have reached "hot and sweaty", but somewhere in there the notion of "offstage with a burning butt" would tap them on the shoulder and make them think twice.

One of the others recently commented "dad was dead for 2 years before I realized I could do [some disapproved act] and he wasn't going to blister my bottom". And mind you, we're all hovering around 50 now. And still afraid what our parents will do to us for bad behavior! (When my dad was 50, I saw him run from *his* mother and her wooden spoon ... Uncle John had just ratted him out that the reason he was always home from school much later than John was that instead of spending his nickel on the streetcar like John did, the naughty boy spent his in the candy store and then had to walk home. Grandma did not believe in the statute of limitations on lying to your mother, and it was clearly going to be "you first for lying, and then John for covering up for you"; dad ran out the kitchen door and John ran out the front door, knowing she couldn't chase both of them. So, yes, I have nooooo doubt that as long as my father is breathing, my backside is not safe from swattage for certain infractions. Keeps me on the straight and narrow.)

Me, I was 3000 miles away, where I knew I wouldn't get caught, before I started acting out that way. Doesn't mean we didn't "get to second base" before that, but I knew where to draw the line so that I didn't have to face the consequences.

Realizing that you are *not* her mother, I understand that you might not have been involved in her formative years, and that she might not have listened because you were *not* her mother, so don't take this as criticism of what you may or may not have said back then.... But that is EXACTLY who will have the most impact on teenage girls: those of you who really have BTDT.

Auntie Karen could preach till I'm blue in the face, and it would do no good because "you have no kids, what do you know about it?" (In fact, I saw one of my older cousins have to get married, and then get divorced because Mr. RightNow was not Mr. Right, and then have trouble finding someone to date her when they heard about the two kids, so I knew that consequence, too.)

But someone who's walked that proverbial mile in those shoes sitting down with a group of teens and saying "I was a teenage single parent and there was no money for anything, I had to do the 2 AM feeding even if I was in bed with the flu, succinctly: it was hell" might get through to them in the way that the nuns can't.

Again, depends on the parenting. XH was indoctrinated into instant gratification; dad would always give him money for whatever he wanted instead of suggesting he save his allowance for a few weeks. He's always looking for the greener pasture with some other woman, the ones who are deferential enough don't earn enough, and vice versa, and some day he's sure he'll find one who's a millionaire, so subservient that she's willing to cede all control of the money to him, maternal, gourmet cook, good in bed, and, and, and... He didn't like the combination of some (but not all) of those qualities his first wife presented, wasn't happy with the combination I had, wasn't happy with the two women after me (at which point our mutual friend stopped speaking to him, so I don't know how many more there have been), but continues to hope to find all

10 qualities in one woman, rather than just 4 or 5. (Some of which are mutually exclusive, IMHO.)

I may not have been completely happy with what I had, but I wasn't actively looking for greener pastures the way he was, because I was raised to make the best of a bad situation, and work toward improving that situation, not bail out because the going got a little rough. Which the marriage counselors told me wouldn't work if one of us was working at it and the other was only looking for a way out. (He thought he had found someone "better", and was trying to figure out a way to live with her while keeping me legally obligated for paying his bills; she couldn't afford to support him. And once he moved in with her, he found she had faults, too.)

True. Going back to the dance group, no one messed with us girls because we had "12 big brothers" who would defend our virtue. We girls were each other's chaperones (and consciences).

Not always. As one of seven, I can tell you that fairly consistent parenting still produced a wide variety of attitudes about "instant gratification" vs "I have to work for what I want." It's not all about nurture; quite a bit is about the internal wiring with which we come into this world.

Elizabeth

Yep--we agree. I just said it differently, but that's what I mean. For some odd reason it seems to me that today's kids think there's something glamorous about having a baby, almost like a coming of age ritual. I see it in poor families and now I see it in lots of middle and upper class families as well. In my day it was smoking cigarettes that was the "in" thing. I suppose all the Hollywood single women having babies plays some role in influencing the girls, but no one spends time and effort in making these kids aware that the Hollywood people have millions of dollars and nannies up the wazoo and raising a child is a lifetime commitment.

Both of these things have proven to be dangerous and life changing, but kids continue to ignore the warnings so we need to make a concerted effort to keep them informed.

It's still raining and I'm starting to feel like a fish.

glub, glub