Life & Health – Page 4 – Worldwide Organization for Women

The Office of Fatherhood

June 11, 2018June 15, 2016 by Richard

In an era of social confusion, Father’s Day lends an opportunity to honor and clarify this unique and valued office. I use the word office because it denotes Fatherhood as an answering to duty by one who is fitted for that performance.

WOW’s 7th position on Fatherhood states:

We encourage men of all ages to obtain the knowledge, skills, wisdom, and confidence necessary to assume their role as honorable leaders, proficient providers, and loving husbands and fathers in their homes and families.

Fatherhood involves a voluntary trust between wives and children that institutions have traditionally and wisely supported even censured in its neglect. Centuries of wisdom illustrate that a weakened, frustrated, and confused society is the result when this trust is broken. Homer dramatically contrasts this idea between his Iliad and Odyssey. In the Iliad, there is the destruction of a whole society because of one infidelity. Its companion epic, the Odyssey, teaches that faithfulness between one couple Odysseus and Penelope preserved a society that was beginning to unravel.

While the man’s role of defender or protector appears innate, the actual making of boys fit for the office of Husband and Father is a unique male challenge and an art that is best practised by Fathers, supported by Mother. This transition from boyhood to manhood was not lost in Homer’s story either. He illustrates Telemachus’ difficult struggle into manhood in the long absence of his father.

As far as a Husband and Father’s responsibility of provider, I’ll use my own story, since the conquer and plunder method of Odysseus has become antiquated, thank goodness. I am currently a degreed stay at home Mom and quite content with my hiatus out of the workforce, and total economic dependence on my husband. In fact, I am grateful for my husband’s assuming his office as provider for the family. I spent about a decade trying to balance work and family, and found it exhausting, stressful and unbalanced. It actually led to health issues. I felt I couldn’t really give my best self to anything or anyone. The last fourteen years out of the workforce, commencing with the birth of my third child has felt healthy, natural, and balanced. I feel I’m better able to give my best self and feminine energy to the people and things I care about the most. I attribute this to my husband and me learning to live better within our complementary spheres. We’ve discovered Father in his office and Mother in hers helps to harmonize the home and is the natural ingredient children and societies thrive in. May God bless Fathers and Fatherhood that uniquely male office.

A Sign Our Society Needs Self-Government

June 13, 2018June 2, 2016 by Richard

On a recent plane flight I happened to open the magazine provided for passengers by the airline in the seat back pocket. In the magazine there was an article titled “Break Room” about these “Anger Rooms” that are starting to pop up around the country.

For between $25 and $75 a person gets the opportunity to smash a fake office, living room or kitchen. The company can also provide mannequins to destroy as well.

Donna Alexander, the founder of Anger Rooms said the idea is to provide “a place for people to safely lash out without any consequences.”

After reading this line in the article my heart sank. “Are we really living in this place?” I wondered. Do we live in such a brutal, out of control society that it would be considered good therapy or appropriate for a person to spontaneously destroy stuff or mannequins posing as real people? Is the next great trend for the modern world anger and violence? Are we that selfish? Have we lost touch with our humanity?

These Anger Rooms are proof of our society’s entitlement mindset. The business is based on the idea that a person should be allowed to be as aggressive as they want to when they feel an emotion coming on, and not have to follow God’s law of cause and effect.

It is a false ideology that people need to “lash out” in order to calm down. Sure, when a person gets angry and aggressive they release endorphins which cause a high and then a low similar to the high and low induced by exercise, but that kind of chemical manipulation isn’t calm. It isn’t safe either.

It isn’t safe for a person to feel like they have to beat something or smash something to gain control of themselves again. What could happen to a person who routinely visits Anger Rooms to “lash out” and then one day is in a town without an Anger Room? What could they feel entitled to do?

According to the employees of Anger Room in Atlanta the solution to this potentially unsafe situation is clearly more shops. In one video on www.angerroom.com the staff member interviewed said, “If there were an Anger Room on every corner, the world would be a better place.” In the “Hemispheres” magazine the company said that they have intentions to take Anger Rooms global in 2017.

It saddens me that there is a market for paid anger sessions.

Don’t forget that it was the villain in the recent Star Wars movie who lost control, not the good guys. Kylo Ren, dressed in his black cape and mask, repeatedly lashed out in anger with his light saber on computers and in entire rooms aboard his ship. No one was there. The property was his. He didn’t hurt anyone during those anger sessions. Despite all of this my son leaned over to me in the movie and said, “Mom, he is totally out of instructional control.” It was obvious that his evilness and out of control behaviors complimented each other.

As I look at the social and psychological steps we have taken in recent years to arrive at this new type of emotion-based Anger Room business, I see a society living a lie. The lie is that they see themselves as more humane and loving than ever before yet there are more bullying cases at school than ever before, more cyber bullying than ever before and more domestic violence and abuse cases than ever before. Is our society going more and more out of control? Are we living in a never ending violent video game? Does war have to be in our heads as well as on our televisions?

I am in my 40s. When I was a child most children still didn’t talk back to their parents. Now days I have seen children yell and hit their parents, even in front of other adults and in public places. In a recent Wall Street Journal article titled “Parenting in the Age of Awfulness” Leonard Sax said, “Children are immersed in a culture that stokes disrespect.”

What could be more disrespectful than a violent video game aimed at hurting another imaginary person for no apparent reason. And what about the way people talk to each other on social media and commentary threads on blogs? People are hostile and aggressive and this is seen as a sign of power. Text talking cuts out all civility in discourse. And, finally the interactions seen in television and movies are selfish and image as well as power based.

On the internet we preach of personal power but never preach of self-restraint. Accepting no answers is not an option in most people’s minds. This is proven when young parents ignore authority as they let their children run wild in businesses and public places. We are missing boundaries and no answers. We need self-government.

This might go down in history as one of the most negative articles I have ever written, but I think it is important to take in the whole picture. Society at large doesn’t seem to be filling in the missing pieces.

We don’t need places to lose more control and ignore consequences. Instead we need the source of true control, and to focus on positive consequences. Without consequences there is no good and no happiness as well as no bad. Good choices create good consequences and a happy life. We need to put off the anger, not feed it, and show the world how to find the real power and the real happiness by learning self-government.

The increased social emphasis on anti-bullying has increased bullying, and the increase of a variety of media addictions and disconnection from family has created more selfishness and violent tendencies. Entitlement mentality is at an all time high and respect is at an all time low. Even self-respect is hard to find.

The history of this social change and reasons why we are now in this violence mess could all be discussed at length, but the solution is simple and short. Roles. If parents and children understood their roles again the world would be different. No answers would be given when needed and problem solving would occur with the help of consequences. When people understand their roles at home they remain more free from the intrusion of outside influences upon their roles. The media would become less important and be used less frequently. The role of media in our lives would be considered more carefully.

I have noticed that parents who know their roles and frequently teach and correct their children are also the parents who analyze the influences coming into the home more as well.

Knowing our roles and understanding them is only half he battle though. We must know how to properly use them. This means we need to know how to do the teaching with principle and skill. This is why I teach self-government.

Notes:

Anger Room and Promotional Video: https://www.angerroom.com/

Hemispheres Magazine by United Airlines: https://www.unitedmags.com/

Domestic Violence: https://www.austin-institute.org/research/is-domestic-violence-on-the-rise-in-america/

Bullying: https://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-statistics.html

“Parenting in the Age of Awfulness” https://www.wsj.com/articles/parenting-in-the-age-of-awfulness-1450397051

Kylo Ren Temper tantrum video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaZ0L7aDx50

A Year To Remember For The Utah Legislature!

June 13, 2018March 20, 2015 by Richard

This year WOW was actively engaged in the Utah Legislature fighting to protect religious libertites, parental rights, family, and rights of conscience. There were a lot of bills and resolutions this session that are worth talking about.

The biggest topic on Utah capitol hill for the past few years has been what to do about the anti-discrimination bills that keep pushing language that would not protect religious liberties. WOW has fought dilligently for the past three years to protect religious liberties.

SB99, SB100, HB322, SB297 and SB296 were a handful of the bills that asked for religious liberties or anti-discrimination legislation or both. Of these bills SB296 and SB297 passed. This last bill was a balanced bill calling for anti-discrimination in housing and employment, but also calling for protection of religious liberties.

During this legislative session the LDS church spoke out in favor of SB296 and SB297undoubtably making a positive influence on their passing. The ACLU opposed these bills. WOW was very disappointed that HB322 did not pass as it was a very good bill for protecting religious liberties.

There was an exciting bill stating that parents must opt their children into sex ed. classes now. This is a great precaution to take to protect the consciences of children and religious freedoms as well as parental rights.

HB48 passed. This bill prevents some uses of powdered alcohol. This is good news.

WOW was opposed to HB391 the death with diginity (assisted suicide) bill. Luckily this bill did not pass.

WOW was opposed to HB134 which was a homeschool tax credit bill. We felt that this bill would potentially lead to regulation of homeschooling families in the future leading to possible violations of parent rights, and it is not a fair bill to other families who don’t have children in public schools and won’t get credits. This bill did not pass.

SB175 unfortunately passed. It was a bill designed to create a school safety help line for children. This hotline will be promoted to children. The calls will be taken by unknown people at the University of Utah and parents will not be told if their child calls the number. We have not been able to determine what kinds of advice or services can be offered by the unknown people at the college. We see this bill as a very possible violation of conscience and a definate violation of parental rights to help their own children. We felt it would be better to adopt a plan to teach children to talk more with their parents and teachers instead of take more tax money to refer children to strangers whose morals are not known.

These were some of the big bills we watched and chimed in on. But, there are always some kind of ridiculous bills like this one. Did you know that in Utah code it says it is against the law to ride a bicycle with no hands? Some things are not meant to be made into laws.

It is important that we all stay as informed as possible so that we can stand up for the principles and values we hold dear.

Fifty Shades Of Grey Is Abuse: Don’t See It!

June 13, 2018January 19, 2015 by Richard

The pornification of our culture just got worse with the new movie Fifty Shades of Grey. Just like Planned Parenthood, 50 Shades endorses torturing women for sadistic sex practices. #50shadesisabuse .