A woman relates to men VERY differently when her father passes away. I never really got to spend time with my father before he passed away. It changed my entire perspective of what relationships are like, meant to be like, and what they are supposed to be about. Your dad (for a woman) is a sounding board. When any asshole messes up your life, you go to him. I don’t have that luxury. I don’t know what it feels like to have a dad and even to be loved by one. That’s not to say that my dad doesn’t love me, of course he does – and i love him back; but to really experience and feel that love… I don’t know what it feels like. I don’t know what it feels like to have a man in the house because I don’t even have a brother; so I learnt how to carry heavy boxes,… [Read more]

I would like to share my thoughts on a book referred to me by one of our Lady Dragons: Cherry Tigris. The book entitled Toilet Paper People is a quick read but has such a strong message that I found myself thinking about it weeks after finishing it. Toilet Paper People is about a form of bullying that cannot be remedied by telling your parents, fighting back or even standing up for yourself; the type of bullying that I am referring to is that of a parent bullying a child. Many of us remember the 1981 movie Mommie Dearest where a popular actress was shown to be a psychotic child-abuser behind closed doors. The movie was entertaining and shocking for its time, leading to many quotables and memories of the onscreen antics of Faye Dunaway portraying the film queen Joan Crawford as she beat her little girl with wire hangers and competed with her in the… [Read more]

Do you ever think on something that you do constantly and ask yourself “why do I even bother”? Well believe it or not many of us do little things that we think is productive but it turns out to be merely an activity and not the purpose that we set out to accomplish. A great example of this that I can personally remember deals with athletics and more specifically: athlete parents. I had the privilege of teen-sitting my girlfriend’s daughter for a week and being that she’s a little warrior I was made to play athlete parent for her cross country event. While out there I did a bit of people watching and literally shook my head at some of the people I saw running (or trying to run) with their kids, screaming like maniacs and trying their best to motivate them as they ran the course to improve their time. When the race was… [Read more]

What do you say to a child that has to go to school every day when they know that they will be subjected to abuse? Do you tell them “oh you just stand up to that bully son! I will not be upset if you get suspended for fighting back!” Or do you tell him/her to go to the principal? While parenting is one of the hardest jobs ever, you cannot dismiss bullying as a growth mechanic that will teach your kid a valuable lesson about life. The reason I say this is because no bullied child ever gets over the scars even as adults. Yes, the grade school taunting will make someone self-conscious even if they’re 40 and a CEO of a business. It doesn’t help that the bully is some loser now on a jail rotation and dying. It doesn’t matter that you conquered life and have a beautiful family and more money… [Read more]

One of my biggest arguments for team sports is the normalizing of the Superhero prospect. What do I mean by that? Well when you haven’t played team sports and your only experience with teams stem from either video games or what you see from a distance – your brain tends to romanticize the ability to go beast. See in video games when you are playing sports or even military skirmishes, you have power-ups that can be timed and used to allow one member of the team to single-handedly bring it back. When you play a team sport and you try to individualize the loss and turn on beast mode, you find that it isn’t something that you can call up at will. Only a very small amount of people can turn on the beast successfully but when you play games and watch movies you think that it takes a wink of the eye to perform… [Read more]

Schools don’t care that your child is being bullied. Principals don’t care, the bus driver doesn’t care and while their teacher may care, the effectiveness of one teacher is extremely limited. Fact of the matter is that much of the fault falls squarely on your shoulders as parents. Your detached relationship with the kid and refusal to enroll he/she in a martial arts school due to the cost, or the pain in the ass of driving them there daily, has led to them being the “prison bitch” of their school campus. Oh why use the harsh term “prison bitch” on this topic? Let me explain. School is a faux Prison System Many kids will not even talk about their bullying to their parents out of embarrassment (they have the asshole dad who will just recant the old “just stand up to them son” without any detail) or fear of the wrong kind of interference (the… [Read more]

Talking To Your Child About What Happened… Whether you were with your child’s mother/father for long enough for the kid to remember, or if it was something your kid never experienced, the day will always come where they want to know what happened between the two of you.  Let’s face it, more often than not, the subject leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the one who was left, disrespected, found the other in bed with someone else, etc.  Unfortunately, it’s hard to get over the issues due to the fact that you are never truly free of that person and are constantly reminded of them in the eyes, nose, or voice of the little person you both created.  When the time comes keep these pieces of advice in mind, as they will help to ensure that what happened does nothing to change the view of you in your child’s eyes. Use The Don’t… [Read more]

Look ladies and gentlemen, if you are with a new love that makes you feel like a million bucks all at the expense of your child then you need to wake up and realize that you are being selfish. While it’s important that you take care of your happiness along with your child’s during his/her 18 year stint in your home, it is still important that the child is happy. I’ve seen it from I was a shorty, single women moving in assholes on their children in hopes that the two will warm up to one another in time. Let me be completely honest with you, many guys will NEVER warm up to your children based off the fact that they aren’t of his seed. Hell he may end up treating his own flesh/blood like shit while keeping you up on that golden pedestal, is that worth your child’s sanity? I want to meet your… [Read more]