Speak now or forever hold the microphone.......

Isn't it amazing that we write down our thoughts and it gets 'frozen' in time on the internet. As long as you have a blog that you can put your thoughts on to - you either get read by other browsers or you can choose to keep it private. Its wonderful.
I believe that people should learn how to share their ideas with the intent to help other people and hopefully influence change - a change for the better. Its sad if you keep your well intended thoughts all to yourself - your ideas might just help save a few lives or even brighten up someone's day.

Karma

Karma - as simply described - is what returns to you when you do either good or bad. If you do something good, something good will also happen to you and vice versa. Good begets good, bad begets bad. That's the circle of fate.

Karma - as it is usually used -is what you are warned about just when you are about to do something bad... even if you think your reasons are right. Same goes when you do something right for the wrong reasons. Its not a balanced situation and the ways do not justify the means.

Karma - in reality - doesn't happen immediately. Sometimes it never happens at all. Circumstances surrounding our day to day lives are 80% influenced by external situations and people, 20% is made by our decision making faculties. The saying "we are the results of a decision" is implicitly true to a point. Regardless of the influences - it is still a decision that makes us who we are, what we are, how we are and where we are at this moment in time. No one can be blamed for our current circumstance except ourselves because we made a decision that led to it some where in time, some where in the past.

If we say "I never saw this coming" - you can't blame anyone for that matter because when we make decisions - how far into the future do we consider the decisions we are about to make in the "now"?

I mentioned that 80% of the time, external forces influence our decisions. That true. Because we take into consideration how our decisions will affect other people, if our decisions will benefit more than just a few, and we weigh the consequences and see if there are more 'fatalities' over 'survivors'. Of course, being humans and humane - we choose the lesser of the two evils even if it will adversely affect our own destiny... ending up as fatalities of our own misguided decisions. So its like saying you made the right decisions for the wrong reasons... or the wrong decisions for the right reasons ... and we usually end up being the ones regretting those decisions we made.

So now what? If you're in a sordid situation you're having a hard time getting out of - make a decision for YOURSELF and no one else. Of course there will be people caught in the crossfire but you're already a fatality here - are you going to bury yourself as well? If the decision you need to make will benefit both you and a lot of other people - then make that decision. If your decision will hurt more people than you, then its not a good one. But right or wrong - in both areas - you as well as other people should come out untouched by the consequences of your decisions. As painful as it is to make decisions that alter the course of a person's life - the question remaining is - is it going to do more good than harm to them? Because any decent human being will not harm another person just for the heck of it. Nor would they harm an innocent just to prove a point. But if that person doesn't have an ounce of decency - then we all know what the answer will be. There will be fatalities and there will be a lot of innocent people caught in the crossfire... after which you will know the true nature of the person who caused so much pain and harm in the long term... selfish, ego-centric and vain... with no regard for anyone else except his own personal satisfactions and comfort.

Check this out

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/letterstotheeditor/view/20080412-129895/Shepherds-lost-in-quagmire-of-corruption

Why should one NOT get married [Part 3]

PREGNANCY

When a woman gets pregnant, there are only two reactions – happiness and depression. Happiness comes in when a baby is really needed or demanded by both parties. When we say both parties – we don’t mean the parents of the husband and wife; but by both the husband and the wife. Because they are the only ones who’ll know “it is time” to have kids. No amount of badgering from in laws should force a couple to have kids when they themselves are not ready for it.

Depression sets in when a woman starts to realize what’s in store for her for the next 9 months and the several years to follow after delivery. Especially for women who are not expecting to get pregnant or those who are not prepared to be pregnant yet. It isn’t like you’re buying a pet from the pet store that you can choose the breed and specie of the pet you want.

Having a child calls for totally forgetting one’s self and sacrificing your own agenda for the next several years until the child is old enough to attend school. That would mean that a woman has no personal agenda of her own for the next 4-6 years. And even when the child goes to school, a woman will still not have enough time for herself since she has to monitor and attend to the child through its studies and upbringing in the school atmosphere.

The thought of losing the little amount of freedom can be depressing to a woman although most men and people would think her crazy or strange to be depressed when she’s pregnant. In any marriage, time for one’s self is vital since it gives the woman time to regenerate and recharge fatigued muscles and emotions and get some peace of mind even for just 2-3 hours a day. A newborn baby will take all that away from her whether people around her debate it or not. The pregnancy alone is an experience only a handful of women find sincerely wonderful while most women keep silent about their inner most opinions for fear of being criticized by relatives or in laws and friends.

Those marriage seminars will never discuss pregnancy in detail but generalities. You have sex, you get pregnant, you carry the baby to full term and you deliver normally or by c-section at the end of the 9-month term. Easy, right? No. No one will tell you about the first trimester when all you can do in the morning is throw up because it’s the “craving” period.

On the first trimester, you’ll have cravings. You’ll have morning sickness as well or when you simply throw up at the oddest things like smells food and perfume. Some women become bedridden during the first three months and doctors call it a difficult pregnancy, as if the entire procedure wasn’t difficult enough and family make you feel it’s your fault you have a difficult pregnancy.

On the second trimester, your stomach starts to bulge. Your breasts become painful and hard, sometimes too tender to even wear a bra. The stomach’s skin starts to stretch and marks appear. This can easily be erased after birth if you religiously apply expensive skin lotion to provide for its suppleness or else you get ugly stretch marks after you give birth. On the sixth month, the baby will start kicking from the inside and some women find the experience wonderful or exciting. Most women start visiting a doctor on the second month and this will become a monthly ritual until you give birth. Ultrasound will be performed each time to monitor the baby’s heart rate. You’ll undergo a series of tests to find out if the baby will be deformed or to find out if your body is sustaining enough nutrients to suffice for both you and the baby. In a nutshell – your diet is monitored. Your physical activity becomes limited. If you have a husband who prefers sexy women in bed, forget about having sex even after 2 months after you’ve given birth. It simply isn’t done. Husbands like these should be made to sleep in another room or in his parent’s house since he got you pregnant in the first place then he prefers to have a sexy bed partner.

It is seldom to find a husband who’ll love you and reassure you of his feelings even if you’re deformed and bloating from pregnancy. The rarest find and a treasure to behold is to find a man who’ll find a pregnant woman sexy and appealing and actually have better sex with his wife than before she got pregnant.

For first time mothers – it isn’t harmful for the baby to have sex until the second trimester or until your doctor tells you to stop. It is reassuring for the mother therefore reassures the baby as well. A stressed out pregnant mother is NOT a good pregnancy mood. It isn’t good for the baby as well because the baby will feel it. Sex during pregnancy is better for both partners because it affirms their love for one another. But if the husband just performs sex with her to pass off his urges, it would be better if the couple did not have sex at all unless the pregnant woman starts feeling used.

Making love and having “just” sex is really different from the other. And it is totally unfair for the pregnant woman to be used because it adds to her growing insecurity. Pregnancy will make a woman feel insecure at some point. It isn’t a bad case of vanity but it isn’t also pleasant to watch one’s body bloat and become deformed as each day passes. To add to the insecurity is a husband who can’t even make love properly to his wife during this time or a husband who just totally stops touching her for one reason or another.

Towards the end of the second trimester and the start of the last trimester, it will be difficult to stand up straight. There will be difficulty in just about everything a woman needs to do like simply bending or sitting. Breathing becomes labored and she will always be short of breath. Her limbs become bloated because of the accumulated liquid in the body. Her hands and feet grow twice their normal size and sometimes, dark patches of skin appear around the neck, armpits and panty lines. By this time, she will hardly even see her feet since her stomach is now bulging drastically. The kicking becomes more frequent and there will be trouble controlling your urination processes. You tend to run to the toilet more often than usual. Standing up for a long period of time becomes difficult and a simple car ride becomes traumatic for a pregnant woman. Because it rattles her body, it rattles the baby. Back pains will start to bother her. Her stomach’s skin will be so stretched that vein lines begin to show up. These are either green or blue vein lines from the breasts to the stomach wall. Sleeping will also become difficult because you cannot lie on your back unless you want to cut your breathing while you’re sleeping. You have to lie on one side with a high pillow on your head and a pillow between your legs as well since your thighs can’t meet anymore.

When “the day” comes for you to deliver – if you’re going to deliver normally, you’ll suffer contractions and spasms every 5 minutes to about 2 minute intervals until your hip bones expand. The nurses and doctors will monitor your bone expansion from hourly to every 30 minutes to 10-minute intervals depending on how fast you hip bones expand to give way for the baby. Some women have labor pains and contractions from 4 hours to 24 hours. If this is your first baby, it will take a long time for your bones to expand. Some women average to 12 –18 hours before their bones expand. And all these hours – you’ll be suffering from excruciating pain every 2-5 minutes. You won’t be allowed to take water during this time. And where will your husband be during these hours? Probably computing how much he’ll have to pay for given the amount of time you’re spending at the delivery room.

It is no longer a practice in hospitals to let the husband join in the delivery unless the couple is certified Lamaze graduates. This is because most men faint the minute the baby comes out and some times, the hospital bill doubles since the husband hit his head on a trolley or on the floor on his way down. So much for their participation in the delivery room. But this policy of not making these men see first hand how a woman suffers delivering his baby is totally unfair and sexist. They were there when the baby was being made and they did have a good time making the baby. So why should they be absent when the pain and the suffering comes in? It isn’t exclusively a woman’s role to suffer while they have all the fun and they don’t even see first hand the delivery of what they helped make.

After a baby is delivered, the mother usually suffers from post-partum syndrome. Some psychiatrists attend to newly delivered mothers because women who just gave birth usually feel bad and depressed because of the hardship of the procedure. And after nine months of carrying a child in her belly, she deserves a break. But this never happens. The minute she regains full consciousness, the baby is brought to her for her to breast feed and give the baby the first milk which according to studies helps promote the immune system of the baby. Not much break from that. And it will never stop from this point onwards. Every time that baby cries, she will have to drop everything she is doing and breast feed the baby. Newborn babies only cry when they are wet or hungry. And they require feeding almost 8-10 times a day round the clock.

Normal delivery ensures a mother of being up on her feet within 2 days. Some hospitals make women walk from the delivery room to their wards right after they are cleaned up and fully conscious. So much for “caring” for the mother.

If a mother delivers by c-section or caesarian section, the stitches start hurting after the second day and she will be unable to move around too much for 2 weeks. If she has to move, she has to be assisted and that means everything from brushing her teeth to going to the bathroom or toilet, sitting up, lying down, standing up or just simply try to walk around. She is directed not to be too mobile for two weeks because of the stitches. The stitches might be healed on the surface skin but on the inside, it would take a month to 3 months for the inner muscles to heal up. Cold temperatures will cause the wound to throb and the normal functions of the muscles are stopped so the stomach has a harder time reverting back to their normal size. This is why some women who had a c-section tend to have sagging stomach skin over their bikini lines.

Why should one NOT get married [Part 2]

[Chapter 2] IN-LAWS

The in-laws will never side with you no matter what they tell you, no matter how NICE they are to you. Never let your guard down. Blood is always thicker than water unless of course if you find a man whose parents aren’t as intrusive as most in laws or better yet, if he’s an orphan. Being the girl, the mother in law will always be the queen of the house and everyone is expected to pay her homage especially the daughter in law. So it is always better to get your own place even before the wedding. If not, the reality is she will always tell you what to do in handling her son, managing your kids, managing your house.

If your husband brings home something for you, there’s a possibility that there’s a “twin” item for his mother. Or else she will resent the fact that her son never beings home anything for her and resent you in the process. The question now is what if your husband doesn’t want to leave the nest? Of course it is unfair because you left your nest to be with him, right? Where is it written than a woman for simply being a woman; should uproot herself to be with her husband?

If I remember correctly, the Bible says that a man shall leave his parent’s house to be with his wife. But that isn’t always the case in our society. It is even worse when a woman refuses to leave her nest and insists that her husband stay with her and her parents. That too is pathetic and unfair to the man. It is always better to be on your own and not be with any in law for that matter even if it’s just a one-room apartment; it’s still your domain.

Another reality no one will discuss with you is the manhandling that goes on within a marriage. Thank the Congress for passing the Marital Rape Law. When a man beats up his wife it is called “a natural occurrence”, it happens, it can’t be helped. This society finds stupid machismo synonymous with wife-beaters. And it is only lately that a wife can send her erring husband to jail for beating her up. When a wife beats up her husband, they call it abuse and abnormal and she ends up in jail if she’s not aware of her rights as a woman and as a wife. When a wife wants to have sex and he doesn’t, she can’t do anything about it unless she wants to be called a slut. When a man wants to have sex and she says no, there are two possibilities. She gets beaten AND raped or she gets replaced. Or worse, both for the same matter.

Child rearing is a woman’s domain. Even if society encourages a man to take part in the daily care of a baby, the woman is still the star of that role. There are things no commercial would show as far as child rearing is concerned. Like waking up at 3am to make milk and the baby’s screaming his head off. No, it isn’t just for one night but for every night until the baby stops drinking milk from a bottle after 3-5 years. Changing diapers is also messy. Smelly and messy. But women cope because it’s their child but when a man is caught with a dirty diaper, he calls his wife because it’s a “woman’s job” regardless if she hasn’t slept in the past 18 hours.

Breast feeding also requires some orientation. Some women find it uncomfortable to breast feed. Some can’t even lactate due to some physical problem with the breasts. Of course, men can never fill this role so it is up to the women to perform. If you can’t breast feed, elderly people will tell you so many terrible things about the inability and what the baby is missing out on. To a point of saying you’re a lousy mother; these people won’t care what the problem is. If you’re capable of breast feeding, your breasts; voluptuous as it was before you gave birth only has one direction and that’s south. The breast line goes nearer and nearer your waist line and for what? Okay you’ve breast fed the baby. You have breast fed the baby for more than 6 months. People will say it is best if you do for 2 years! Doing this, you earn the favor of all the elderly people in his and your family. But when you’re alone and you look at yourself naked in the mirror, what do you see? Do you think you’ll like what you’ll see? Your nipples will be huge and swollen and the entire breast is beginning to sag. You think you’ll like seeing that? Do you think your husband will like seeing that as well? It is RARE that a man will take into consideration that his wife is breastfeeding his child and accepts the changes in her body. Most men don not have the brain cells to even accept it or be considerate enough and expect their wives to “take better care of physical attributes” to keep him interested.

Why should one not get married? Dealing with the reality of being married has no seminar or course in college. You have counselors but they usually show up after the wedding and after the marriage goes haywire. The Church calls marriage a sacred vow both parties have to fulfill in order to be favorable in the eyes of God. 8 out of 10 marriages are lousy and depressing. 6 out of 10 marriages end up in separation and people will always take sides and blame both parties. More often than not, men leave their wives because of someone else. Some one younger or more adventurous in bed. That is considered normal in our society because of the “macho” image of having more than one woman in a man’s life. But when a wife leaves her husband for one reason or another even if it isn’t because of another man, she is the most evil wife, the most immoral person and the one with all the faults. Did anyone bother to ask her why she left?

People and counselors only see the outside scenario. They can’t understand the situation because they are not the ones IN the situation. They might be able to relate to your problems but marital problems are on a case-to-case basis. There isn’t one exact replica of another problem. In general there are similarities but the details differ and levels of pain and abuse vary.

How does one deal with it when after the honeymoon, Dr. Jekyll returns to being Mr. Hyde? People react differently under different circumstances. He might be a saint living with his parents but the devil in disguise the minute you get your own place. You won’t know until it’s too late and the only solution is either getting a legal separation or annulment. This is where counselors and group therapy in some religious council come in. People will invite you to join their marriage counseling group and have some one “in the know” tell you that there’s something wrong with your marriage, as if you didn’t already know. They’ll give you lessons on how to bear the hardships and how to deal with the partner. They’ll tell you everything except tell you to leave him or her. I doubt it if they’ll say anything if one partner ends up dead in the bedroom or in the intensive care unit after being beaten up.

So you found a real jerk or bitch. The down side to all this is that you’re married to each other and there’s no divorce in this country. The legal separation is a lengthy and expensive process and it is mandatory that a couple undergo marriage counseling for 6 or more months to be monitored and given by a psychiatrist. If the shrink does not declare either party mentally incapacitated, then 6 months of counseling will not guarantee a separation but instead make it more impossible to be separated. An annulment takes even longer and is more expensive than getting a legal separation. So why should you get married in the first place?

There are no ideal marriages. People will always tell you that. No fairy tale, no Prince Charming, no happy endings. That’s the reality no one else will discuss with you until you realize for yourself that you’ve made one heck of a stupid mistake. And by that time, you’ll probably be intellectually backward to be gainfully employed, back ridden by half a dozen kids, no maids and too old for the job market. You might have a 36-40-45 body statistic and a husband you’d love to lose with the 40 pound excess weight you’ve gained in less than 10 years.

At this day and age, a woman should not be bothered by the fact that her age is leaping off the calendar and she is still single, no kids and no husband. That is bliss for most women who are still within the calendar’s number but look like they have their age written in the lotto ticket. Compare a working wife-mother to a mother/wife who stays home to take care of the kids, house and husband. Who is happier and more fulfilled as a person? Of course it will always be the working wife because she’s independent, she doesn’t need her husband’s financial help in some cases. She is socially active, socially aware, updated with the changing times and her level of self respect is higher than a house-bound wife. Some women find fulfillment in being full time mothers and wives. But the bottom line is – a woman has to be prepared for the unknown. She has to be ready for anything and to better arm herself with whatever comes – working a job is better than working at the home no matter what elders say. What if he leaves you and you’re not working? To get a legal guarantee you and the children will get support the minute he steps out of the door is a long shot. I know a lot of separated women who work and take care of their kids with no decent support from their husbands or totally nothing. Yet these men expect to get visitation rights the minute they don’t have a girlfriend waiting for them. The way I see it, if they want to see their children, they should pay for it. If they don’t want to get legal summons from court, they should send decent support. But the law in this country lacks implementation and monitoring. Filing one document in family court is expensive and most mothers would rather use that money to buy food than spend it on blood-sucking lawyers.

House bound wives are often mistaken as those who have nothing to do since all they do is stay home. That all they attend to is gossip with the neighbors or watch gossip shows and drama series on television. When the 15^th or 30^th comes, they demand for their husband’s salaries. That is the typical Filipino mentality for house wives. What most people are not aware of is the fact that a full time mother/wife is a 24 hour job description with no overtime pay, no vacation leaves and no salary adjustments. The only salary they get is whatever’s left of the budget once everything is paid for. Being a full time mother/wife means being at the beck and call of everyone in the house. It’s better if she has a maid but most men who have non-working wives at home prefer that they not get a maid especially if it’s a small family at that.

Full-time mothers/wives do everything in the house from scrubbing the toilet grime to doing the laundry, throwing out the garbage, cooking, cleaning, and picking up after everyone, doing the dishes and ironing the clothes. She is mother, wife, cleaning lady, cook, garbage woman, laundry woman, carpenter, mechanic, electrician, and tutor and bed partner. To hell if she’s been working from sun up to sun down. The minute her husband makes her lie down and spread her legs, she has no choice but give in. That’s what being a full time mother/wife really is. That’s a major part of any marriage in this country or any country for that matter.

The Church will also tell you that the first and real purpose of marriage is to have kids. (As if there weren’t enough orphans in the world.) So if you’re getting married because you’re pregnant, then that’s that. But if you’re not pregnant, ask yourself if you want kids or if you’re ready to have kids. You have to ask yourself how you feel about children. How? Find a relative or friend with a three year old child and take over as surrogate mother for one day to one week. If you survive one week, you might make it as a mother. But if the week made you feel it was hard and bothersome on both your physical and mental state; don’t feel so bad because most mothers feel the same way you do. The only difference is – you can give up being a surrogate mother and real mothers can’t. They are stuck for life and they are stuck with that reality day in and day out until their kids are old enough to leave the nest.

In reality, if you don’t have a maid and you have a child; you work 388 days a year, 30 hours a day and 9 days a week. Gone are the days when a nursemaid would stay up with you or stay up voluntarily with a child. Today’s maids choose their job description and have the nerve to choose the kind of work they will do and will not do. You also put your child at risk with the possibility that they’ll get neglected, abused or sold when you’re not around. So you end up getting tied not only to the house, but also to the child. And when your husband comes home and starts demanding for attention and sex, would you say no? At the risk of getting replaced or beaten up? The first choice is always NOT to get married.

The “package deal” is also a lot of bull. If you do not learn to put a line between your roles as mother, wife, daughter, and daughter in law, career woman, friend, and partner – the roles get mixed up and you get messed up. You won’t even have time enough for yourself to hear yourself think. But being single doesn’t require such role descriptions because your only role is to yourself. You don’t answer to anyone except yourself and your sole responsibility is yourself. Too selfish? Why? Do you think anyone else is going to look out for you whether you’re married or not? You think your husband will look out for you and take care of you when you need him the most? You’re lucky if you find that one man in a thousand. The minute a man comes home and there’s no food on the table, when he can’t have his way with you and starts treating you no less than the maid, he will look out for you because he’ll be scared to live alone and do every chore by himself. The minute you cannot perform your duties and his house becomes “messy” by his standards, all that mushy crap you felt before you got married is out the door and down the drain. He will manhandle you or leave you to find someone who’ll treat him like a king and that’s the truth.

So why bother getting married? If you’re not a masochist, why get married? If you love your freedom, why get married? If you love your job, why give it up for someone who can’t offer you a job but be his slave for the next ten years or until you die of old age at 39? If you want to be young at an old age, don’t get married. It’s better than getting old at a young age.

Why Should one NOT get married [Part 1]

The basic problems today cover a stem of interconnected items that affect not only married couples as a whole but the individual party as well. Why should one get married in the first place? The Church requires a couple to undergo a series of seminars that perhaps “give” a couple-to-be a fake look into the reality of married life. There are a lot of items these seminars do not discuss with the soon-to-be couples often times misleading them into thinking and believing that all their problems are going to be solved AFTER the marriage. But that’s just it. Couples who do not know the reality of being married will never run out of problems. And there are actually MORE problems when one is married.

But first, a look into why people consider getting married. Love, early pregnancy, financial security, separation from parental ties, age, convenience, mergers, social acceptance, political or business upgrading or just for the heck of it. There are many reasons why people get married and what ever those reasons are, they all disappear the minute reality steps in or after the wedding, which ever comes first.

There are three levels of marriage – the poor, middle class and ultra rich. The ultra rich isn’t spared from their share of marital tumult and more often than not – the legality is more pronounced since there’s more property to divide, more bank accounts to divide, more assets to liquidate, so on and so forth. Lawyers do most of the talking for them. The middle classes hardly encounter such legalities with property and money but there is still the conjugal division, child custody, child support and a lot of disillusionment involved. Here, couples are often face to face with each other and the drama ensues. The poor just get up and leave, go to another nest often leaving behind a string of kids.

But the causes of marital problems affect all the levels involved. Extra-marital affairs, financial distress, incompatibility, irreconcilable differences, lack of communication, in-laws intruding into the marriage, lack of mutual respect, physical abuse, emotional abuse, frustrations, disappointments, financial deprivation, lack of love and lust, a total disregard for each other or simply falling out of love and being miserable in the marriage.

Why should one not get married? That is the question every planning couple should ask themselves before they take the plunge and end up with the Titanic! When you get married, you lose your single blessedness. The single life wherein you can do what ever you want when ever you want and with whom ever you want to be with. You can spend your hard earned money on whoever you want to spend it on, splurge on yourself or someone special and have the freedom to decide for yourself without a second thought for anything else. The night-outs, the parties, the friends, the traveling, the freedom of a career taking you everywhere except down of course. If you’re a female and getting hitched (married) – if you’re not pregnant why get married? Age? Biological clock? If it isn’t a matter of career or biological concerns, why get married?

Pregnancy kills the figure of a woman. It is so hard for a woman to recover her figure after giving birth. It places the body system in such disarray that your breasts start to sag especially if your breast feed, the stretch marks stay forever. If you get operated on while giving birth, you can kiss your bikini goodbye, bikini stitch or not. The scar stays forever and leaves an ugly mark. The skin becomes less pliant so no matter how many stomach crunches you do and go to the gym, the belly is forever sagging. Your hips become so large because if it’s a normal delivery, your bones never go back to their normal position. If one delivers normally, it takes about 3 to 4 days for you to recover. If you get a cesarean section, you’ll be bedridden for nearly a month depending on how fast your body can recover. And then every time the season changes from hot to cold or vice versa, your stomach hurts as if you just had the operation yesterday even if it’s been a year. What most mothers won’t tell their pregnant daughters is the fact that delivering a baby can be fatal if complications arise during the delivery.

If you’re female and getting married, you should realize that 90% of a marriage’s success rests on your shoulders – literally rests on all your limbs. If you’re one of the few lucky ones who get a maid a day after your wedding, that’s good. But many starting couples do not have use for a maid unless you are temporarily handicapped or totally unaware of house work. If you happen to suffer the fate of living with your in laws, the problem becomes triple because now you have to deal with your husband and his entire family as well. Everything you do will be placed under a microscope and no one is beautiful under a microscope. If you will live on your own with your husband, who will cook? Who will clean up the house? Who will do the laundry? Who will iron the clothes? Who will do the dishes, scrub the toilet, clean the bathroom, take out the garbage and do the grocery? If you have a career to take care of, do you think you can still do all these house chores and attend to your career at the same time? Men will never do house chores unless they live by themselves or their mothers trained them well. Men will never lift a finger to wring clothes for hanging even if they tell you they will. Men will never get caught dead doing the laundry or scrubbing the toilet. Even if the great chefs are men, majority of men will never be found in the kitchen doing 3 meals a day. It is good if you have a maid you can supervise, but still YOU supervise because men can never be depended on to supervise house work. So the success of a marriage literally does fall on a woman’s shoulder and that’s because you got hitched. That the real meaning of it – you get hitched like a saddle is placed on the back of a horse. You will do everything, you will supervise everything. Newly married couples cannot afford a maid and a nursemaid at the same time. If you have a career – you either quit your job or work double time to afford yourself a maid. If you quit your job, you will end up doing everything since men and in-laws are fond of saying “you don’t do anything in the house since you’re not working”. To men, staying home is “not working” even if you work your fingers to the bone doing multi-tasks like doing the laundry and cooking a meal at the same time while breast feeding a new born baby. Even if you work straight from 6:00am to 11:00pm, to them, the fact that you no longer “earn” money is “not working” as far as they are concerned.

So reality kicks in the minute you find yourself on all fours scrubbing the grit and grim off the toilet walls, floors and toilet bowl and sink. And you start to realize: Heck, we’re not even blood relatives so why am I doing the entire dirty job when I could be all dressed up and working in an office, earning my own money and still look pretty? Love? Love will not give your back a back rub. Love will not ease the pain of your legs from standing up the entire day. And love will not hang the laundry nor iron the clothes, you will. Love will not erase the varicose veins you’ll develop from standing up too often. Let us say you manage to last for a year doing the same routine 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. At the end of one year, tell me if it’s still “love”. I haven’t even touched on taking care of a newborn baby at this point. This is just juggling housework and career. Women eventually quit their jobs because men will lie and tell their wives they can very well “provide” for her and that she should just stay home. Truthfully enough, men will provide well – they’ll provide their laundry, they’ll provide reasons not to help with house chores, they’ll provide a hundred and one reasons why you can’t go out and watch a movie, go out and dates, go window shopping, they’ll provide you with kids to take care of, their family for you to attend to but the basic necessities to keep a marriage going – they will not provide for the intangibles. It is still up to the wife to balance everything because the minute a husband says – you never have time for me – tell him to take a flying leap because you’re the one fixing up his house, taking care of his stuff and attending as well to his family since you guys don’t have kids yet. In laws will not vanish the minute you have kids. They’ll just be around more often than you’d like them to be.

It’s okay when you can afford to hire house help. You don’t do any house chores. Good for you. So what’s the problem? Too immersed in both your careers? You never go out? You hardly date after the wedding? You want to have kids and he doesn’t? You don’t want to have kids and he wants to? The romance isn’t there anymore?

Let’s start with the basic girl-next-door scenario. You’re a good girl and your parents never had problems with you. Then you meet the man of your dreams and sweep you off your feet. You fall in love, make plans and even talk about getting married one day. But on the other hand, what are you? You’re a single female, young with a blooming career with room for upgrading in your company. Then comes in what he wants. If he wants you to continue your career, good for you. But what if he prefers that you stay home and that he promises to “provide for you”? Of course since you’re caught up in the mushiness of being in love and the beautiful sound of his promises to take care of your every want in the world you’ll probably agree to let go of your career. Most women who can’t afford to lose a man would rather lose their career than to lose a man. And that’s pathetic. It isn’t the RIGHT way to go even if your parents commit suicide trying to convince you it is.

A man can never replace a career. Same as a career can never replace a woman. I have yet to see a man who will let go of his career because a woman asked him to. But many women would give up their careers for their men. Isn’t that odd? Such unfair standards yet society calls it normal that a woman should stay home and take care of hearth and home, kids and husband to boot and an occasional relative or in law on the side.

It’s the new millennium; it’s the 21^st century already. But does society tolerate a working wife? In the metropolis, it is an accepted norm due to the high cost of living in the city. And men have no other option but allow their wives to work because they simply cannot provide enough. During these times when the economy is hard maybe a great deal of husbands prefer that their wives work but is it sincere? In general, how do men feel about it when their wives begin earning more than they do? Unrealistic to say that it’s alright with them because it isn’t. Many couples separate due to financial conditions and it isn’t because of a lack of it, but because she is earning more than he is and he can’t take it. It’s a bad blow to his ego especially if he prides himself as the “provider” of the family. I know of a couple who after 4 kids and 15 years of marriage, the wife renewed her career and made it big in the sales industry. He ended up physically mauling her and she left him in jail all because she earned more than he did. But we’ll go into financial issues later.

But back to our main topic – why should one not get married? Aside from the after effects of the honeymoon, there are realities no parent or pastor would ever discuss with you until it’s too late and you’re deep in the quagmire of things. Today, couples are required strictly to attend seminars on “marriage and family planning” but never will they discuss the rights of both husband and wives, their roles to their spouses, their roles to their future children and what is expected of them as partners. Since these seminars are sponsored by the church, they’ll forever quote and re quote Bible passages regarding wives supposed to be submissive to their husbands and that’s that. The most common issues that adversely affects any marriage won’t be discussed either. But we will. First are the in-laws.

(To be continued....)

Joseph and the Pharaoh

I heard it from a very reliable source that food sources for developing countries as well as under-developed countries would be gone by 2010-2015. The imagine the shock of my life when I heard it on BBC. I need not send you any links because just searching "food shortage" on Google or Yahoo and they will give you so many links to news articles - its practically global.

Then to hear local news last night saying some developer wanted to infrastructure projects in Palawan and Batangas... do we need infrastructure while we go hungry and depend on imports for our food source? I'm not saying infrastructure development should be banned but arable land should be retained primarily for food production ergo - farming.

Reading and listening to all the news about food shortage, rice crisis and now on a global scale - food shortage is caused by over population, a lack of arable land, wasteful eating habits, a lack of manpower to farm, a lack of incentives as well to farm. Just like in the Bible when Joseph told the Pharaoh to stock during the 7 years of plenty to cover the 7 years of famine - can the Filipino do the same thing while there's still time? I remember hearing it on BBC while the World Food Program people were being interviewed - "there will come a time when most exporting countries will no longer export food products like wheat, corn and rice due to shortages in their own country".

With the Philippines' population shooting up and out of control, arable land reducing by 25% every year due to residential and commercial developments, farmers getting screwed out of farms and profit from produce, wholesalers and retailers hoarding, global warming, el niño and la niña distruptiing our harvest seasons - I would like to see a total shift in priorities in this country. Can the government be Pharaoh and listen to Joseph? Can we delay infrastructure developments by 50% and use arable lands to plant, harvest and stock? Can we be self-sufficient enough to feed our own country? Can we put a hold on the growing population and tell the Church to keep quiet about their protests over population control for once? Can we divert profit to those who actually break their backs planting to give them incentives not to stop farming? Can this government support, finance, and cuddle food projects instead of telecoms, infrastructure, commercial and residential projects that won't feed the people in the long term analysis? I'm not saying stop it, but delay it and use the land first - there is so much arable land in this country no one wants to farm and develop as farm lands simply because there's no profit in it anymore. We have IRRI, we taught Vietnam and Thailand to plant fast yielding rice - how come we can't teach our own farmers to do the same thing?

As a mother - I worry like anything over the future of my children who are still in elementary. If we adults are already having a hard time surviving with everything that's affecting us domestically and globally - what about these kids? What kind of future will they have? In the micro level of society - we still may not be feeling the pinch of food shortage. But globally, its already being felt and as part of the global nation - we should do something about it now before the famine years get here. I just hope that I am not the only one who is seeing this and I also hope and pray someone in the government spearheads this in earnest like it was needed yesterday.... Unfortunately, I just can't think of anyone who can.