To My "Little Women"

ck:

excellent suggestions:)

may i add one more quality that when nurtured can be very useful in all facets of life?

sense of humour

Temporal: Yes!! How COULD I forget the most important of them all?!

"Remember good men don't hit women. They don't terrorize women, humiliate them or coerce them into doing something they don't want to do."

Do you have a son?

United Nations says only 30% men are good and 70% are wife beaters. So, 70% girls will not find good husbands in any case. Bad news.

Sumanth, I'd rather my daughters stay alone than marry a wife beater. I pray they grow up to believe the same.

Studies by Men's Rights Organisations show that happy and loving relationships break most often due to ill-advice to young women by someone whom they trust.

It is almost a proven pattern that it is the mother-in-law and in some rare cases it is the sister.

Men are now warning other men to go on a date with "would be" mother-in-law before marrying or even see her astrological charts. It is a strict "No", if mother-in-law is an ideologue and father-in-law is henpecked.

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It is not a dangerous world. The dangers of the world know no genders. A boy have 2 times more chance to commit suicide than a girl after marriage.

Sumanth, I do get what you say. But what is your point (in context to this post)? That I shouldn't teach my girls to not accept abuse? :)

Cee Kay,

No human should accept any kind of abuse from anyone. It is not specific to girls.

Overconfidence on one's belief system is not a good idea.

Your view of seeing men as abusers, can make you blind to issues which your daughters may have in their own behaviour (towards others).

So, when there is a small conflict, you will have a higher tendency to believe that domestic abuse in uni-dimensional and "men to women".

This can lead to wrong advice and escalation.

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It is scientifically proven that more than 50% of domestic abuse is mutual and bidirectional and women initiate more abuse than men.
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Before warning them about "bad men", a sensible woman will teach her daughters against initiating abuse (most often verbal).

Most men do not react to abuse at least initially, which makes women feel that they are right and the man is wrong. This cycle continues for quite sometime, and the men get passive aggressive with silence and start neglecting the woman. Then, it increases chance to get into serious mutual domestic violence (mental and physical).

The rhetoric by ideologues, completely neglects the cycle of domestic violence.

In any society, the bad people are less than 1% in number. Otherwise, the world would not have been running.

I have counseled at least 1000 men and women both married and separated. I have done de-escalations and its is my passion to work in this field.

Sumanth, obviously you don't know me and are trying to "evaluate" and counsel me based on just one post. Don't try.

This post of mine was for my daughters based on my experience as a woman. Of course it will be skewed based on my personal experiences. But just based on this post please do not assume that I am not teaching my daughters not to initiate abuse. Which part of my post told you I am assuming men are abusers? I did talk about "good men", didn't I?

I am just telling my daughters not to doubt their instincts and abilities. By mentioning abusers, I did not mean there are only that kind of people in the world. I wrote 10 other points. You have no opinion on them? You only zoomed in on this one - maybe because your line of work makes you more sensitive to it. But I certainly wasn't focusing on only that point.

Maybe if you read the rest of the post, you'd see that I did talk about things other than abuse. I mentioned being nice, diplomacy, tolerance in there too :)

Do not make assumptions about things that are not mentioned/covered in my post, please.

ck:

pls. humour the von-siffers

let them blow steam

puncture the air out once in a while

ignore them mostly

their phobias are terminal

;)

Cee Kay,

Good Luck to you.

Temporal: Point taken :) Thanks.

Sumanth: Thanks.

Am going to make my daughter read it :)

Thanks Purba :)

btw with minor tweakings these suggestions are equally valid for sons as well

[if my folks had grilled #7, i would have saved a lot on some of them bills;)]

Temporal: You are right! I went over the post again and yes, it is equally applicable to sons. If I had any I would be teaching them the same things.

It still isn't too late for #7, is it? :) As for me, I will now teach it to my older daughter and save on money AND effort ;)

it is too late...

i'd rather find a plumber i could barter with...

a poem for fixing the leak...

troube is...

it is hard to find plumbers who appreciate poetry

;)

ROFL! Or maybe you could barter the other way. A plumber could agree fix the leak if only you'd write an ode to his butt-crack :D

Ooops!! Is this is G-rated site?

affirmative on the ratings

however

have no interest in the anatomical direction you pointed at...

by natural programming it is...(naturally)... directed above that area and below the neckline...

and should you get me wrong...

ss or dee can jump in anytime...

am not referring to the nourishing mammaries but to the centre of life...heart!

;)

Oops (again) and LOL!!

Yeah right. Heart.

:)

I am laughing so hard about the comments I am surely going to forget to comment on the original work. surely T can write something like "ode to things in the general vicinity of the sternum" which covers everything!

also, really liked your 11 things. nicely done. I think t got #12, which is sense of humor INCLUDING never taking yourself too seriously. which some people here obvs. need a stern lesson in.

and my #13 is to travel. if you cannot afford to go far, go as far away as you can afford, to anywhere that is different than where you are now. learn how others live, broaden your world view. it will always, always, always make you understand yourself so much more.

Just for the record, this site is unrated:)

SS: Thanks :) Loved the title suggestion for the ode that Temporal could write ;)

#12 and 13 are great points! If I could, I'd edit the article and add these (with your permissions and appropriate credits, of course).

I also believe that everyone should, at least once in their student life, go and live away from home. Teaches one a lot. But that is something I am hoping my daughters will get to do anyway so didn't include it.

Aaman, thanks for the clarification :)

Cee Kay... nah leave your article as is, it was wonderful! people will just add ideas at will in this space :)

keep writing!

CK

If you need to write letters on public blogs to reach and teach your own kids, your parenting and communication skills may raise eyebrows. But I understand your article is primarily aimed at next-gen of would-be women, even though it is addressed only to your own daughters. It is easier to appear preaching one's own kids than speaking for all parents or all women.


You may have raised some valid points of advice but than it also contains enough droplets of yogurt to turn sour rest of the milk. Central emphasis on 'me-me-me' and "I-I-I" and feminist paradigm can create self-fulfilling prophesies and very dangers and dysfunctions, for which not even 1100-points may be sufficient to cover all bases. We have seen what it can do to the value and durability of commitments, relationships, marriages, families etc at generational and societal levels - they fall like house of cards. Just as one should not turn to communists for learning religion, one should not turn to feminists for advice on parenting, marriage, relationships or how-to family-matters.

I wish you well as parents, and hope your kids turn out well too. Good luck.

kerty, WTF?!?!??
talk about sour milk, or sour grapes or whatever.... LOL!

SS: Thanks for the morale booster ;)

he's BACK! (Kerty)

Kerty: WOW!!!! You got me pegged right where I belong! You got it right - I don't have any parenting skills or communication skills either. My kids are bringing themselves up, the smart buggers!!

Anyway, I am not in a mood to give out reading comprehension lessons. But I do appreciate your concern for my kids. Maybe I can send them to you if they don't "turn out well". No wait! That is why I AM saving for their therapies. So I am not such a bad parent after all, huh?!

You do know, though, that adding yogurt to milk does not turn it sour, right? It just helps the rest of the milk turn into yogurt - another great tasting, nourishing product. Just nitpicking.

SS, sour grapes seems about right :P

Commonsense: You are scaring me - what do you mean "he's BACK" with an "!", no less? Should I be trembling in my shoes? ;)

cee kay, no what kerty was referring to is that he comes to discussions with his sour milk attitude and tries to spoil the whole lot.

best strategy is to ignore, as we must also do with the von siffers. otherwise you get sour milk overload.

anyway, they all forgot you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. guess no one told 'em

SS: :) Oh, THAT way!! Thanks for the explanation :P