When Someone Believes in You

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There’s an interesting program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro that aims to keep 12 to 18 year old girls in school, minus the sad drama of pregnancies or abortions.

The program is sponsored by College Bound Sisters.  Girls in the program attend 90-minute meetings every week, at which they receive lessons in abstinence and the use of contraceptives, and they receive one dollar per day that they are not pregnant.  The money is deposited into a fund that’s available for collection when they enroll in college.

Obviously, there are many who will say “Hey, bribery is not the correct way to handle such behavioral issues.”  But slow down and think about it – when a 12 year old believes that one dollar a day is a great incentive, it tells you two things:

1. the gentle maturity level of such young girls
2. how so very many young girls are hungry for direction

Keep in mind that 3 out of 10 young women become pregnant by age 20, and the costs associated with teen pregnancies exceed $9 BILLION annually.

So, what’s their track record?  According to the co-director of the program, 6 of the 125 who have been enrolled for 6 months or longer have gotten pregnant or otherwise dropped out since it began in 1997 (and it only costs $75,000 – not billion – to operate the program).  Recent graduates have left the program with up to $3,000 saved up for college.  Basically, the representatives of the program say “If someone believes in you, there’s no end to what a lot of people can accomplish.”

This reminds me of a patient I had years ago, who went from “ditzy” behavior and drug addiction to clean and sober.  She completed college and advanced nursing training, and has been employed ever since.  A little ego in me caused me to ask here, “What made the difference here?”  I thought she’d point out some brilliant intervention of mine.  Nope, not at all.  She pointed out that I had believed in her when no one else did, that she had respected me, and I respected her potential.  That made the difference in her outlook and choices.

So, when you’re confused as to how to really help someone, just believe in them, and let them know it.

Bribery?! Haven’t We Been There, Done That?

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The Health section of The New York Times on March 2 debated the usefulness of bribing school children with money, toys, candy and electronic gizmos to have them attain better grades.

When I was in school, it was cute stickers and the pride of getting a good grade that you could brag about that made your parents all sorts of happy.  The good grade was the proximate award for all the hard work.  Getting the reputation as being smart was a good thing, and becoming valedictorian was great, as was qualifying for scholarships of all sizes for college.  Spending a lifetime knowing you worked hard and earned what you had the hard way was the long-term reward.

Now, some geniuses want to rob children of all of that.  These greater minds than ours want children to fight for things of substance (money) rather than for things of glory (purpose).  Not all endeavors have a high rate of financial return:  a hospice worker helps the dying and their families face their fears of death; a fireman runs into burning buildings to save complete strangers from a horrible death; kindergarten teachers introduce our children to the world of budding independence, self-confidence, social maneuvering and the alphabet…and that’s only a few examples.

Frankly, we need more kind and compassionate people than we do more “A” students in this world, as it turns out that the greatest thieves (many CEOs, crooked politicians and Ponzi scheme giants), terrorist masterminds, and general sociopaths all have very high IQ levels and got great grades.

How about us giving financial rewards, candy and electronic gizmos to kids who go out of their way not to bully, tease, steal, lie, sexually harass, or sexually act-out?  Or to those who won’t drink or take drugs or steal or backtalk their elders? 

Would that work, I wonder?

Am I Anti-Female?

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“I love your show, but it makes me CRAZY when you subscribe to the double standard that men get a pass on being sexually cavalier but women are to be thoroughly and soundly condemned.  Why, oh why, don’t you condemn the men as much as the women?  Why aren’t they just as ‘piggy’ and deserving of condemnation?  That societal attitude encourages men to attempt to use women sexually as their birthright and also encourages women to be insecure and distrustful of sex in general.  You’re putting a sexual burka on women overall with that attitude.

I’m not advocating casual sex.  I’m condemning the acceptance of a double standard.  Come on!  There are two sides of that coin and each should assume major responsibility for engaging in casual sex.  Until the act is equally condemned, how can women take those rules seriously?”

This is a recent email from a listener taking me to task for what she perceives is a sort of anti-female, double standard mentality. 

First of all, God and nature are responsible for the reality of a double standard.  Women have breasts from which to suckle the baby born from their uterus after a nine month gestation.  Women’s high-pitched voices and hearing are geared for the infant-mother bonding that miraculously takes place right after birth.  Women’s temperaments to nurture, cuddle, coo, and protect are hardwired into their psychological programming.  Women are different from men.

There is no question that men more easily dissociate love and sex.  Young males in particular are open to sexual experiences for the challenge, orgasmic satisfaction, and status among other males.  These qualities are not synonymous with femininity.

Women give themselves sexually to men out of love, a desperate desire to be wanted and loved, or for money.  It is not typical, as it is with men, for a woman to feel proud of the number of men who have penetrated her; and the only women who look for the sexual challenge are those so twisted with anti-male rage that domination of a male is a form of psychological rape which satisfies that neurotic anger.

Males are generally out of control every which way until they fall in love and take on the obligations and responsibilities of a man committed to a woman and family.  All the research demonstrates that men who are married make more money, are healthier and happier, and function better socially than “loner” men.  In fact, the deranged males who perpetrate horrendous acts of violence are generally such loner males with no families to make them feel important, give them purpose and direction…and love.

Women are the taming and socializing force in society.  Men will only do what women allow.  Remember the ancient Greek classical play “Lysistrata”?  The women in the town refused to have sex if their men continued to participate in war and violence.  Poof, all the violence stopped.  Women have always had the power over men; but feminism got women off the track of realizing that, and on the track to only hating or disdaining men.

Now, women have largely become “pigs.”  Instead of embracing modesty, pride, values, and self-value, they parade around showing their bodies like Playboy bunnies, have sex before “hello,” shack up with men without marital commitment, make babies on their own (declaring that men/fathers aren’t necessary), use abortion as birth control, and don’t imagine feminine sweetness has any place in marriage and are bored with sex with their husbands but turn on to every other Tom, Dick, and Harry.  That is why men have little respect for women these days.

Put Your Kids First, Madonna, Not Yourself

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Everybody wants to know what I think about Madonna’s public comments during her  very public and rancorous divorce.  I think they pretty much match her general public image, demeanor, and behavior.  I have always found her incredibly objectionable, offensive and intentionally vulgar - all under the rubric of free-speech and free-spirit.

To start, I’m not convinced that most current celebrity marriages are indeed commitments of mind, body, and soul as they are intended to be (think Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward).  For the most part, very ‘out there’ performers are exceedingly centered on themselves and want someone to adore them, serve them, be a reflection of their perceived wonderfulness or importance, fulfill a fantasy or simply put…the sex was great and the public relations aspect boosts their visibility.

When the so-called object of their affections becomes tiresome, more or less important or successful, demanding, and no longer reflects a narcissistic boost…they are dispensed with.

When a divorcing spouse makes public vulgar, insulting, and humiliating comments about the other spouse, children are devastated and tend to either compulsively go towards the attacked party to protect and defend them, or compulsively go towards the attacking parent so they won’t also be victimized by that parent.  Either way, children become emotionally fragmented, confused, and distrustful - and that will likely be an issue for their whole lives, especially when they are ready to establish relationships.

Celebrities with the usual chaos in their personal lives are the fodder of media sales and ratings.  Celebrities with quality relationships are ignored (Tom Selleck, for example).

These celebrity musical chair relationships are obviously not a great image for our impressionable youth.  Quite frankly, most divorces don’t need to happen at all.  Weathering lousy times is a sign of character and commitment.  Most of the time when folks call me all angry and convinced they need to divorce, they are simplifying the situation because they haven’t taken the responsibility needed to help maintain a quality comradeship.  I tell them short of abuse, addictions, and repetitive affairs, they should treat the one they want so much to leave as though they loved them with their last breath - for a month - and then watch and feel what happens.

If one parent decides to leave for selfish or foolish reasons, the truth of the situation can be spoken to the children without the nasty parts.  For example, “Your mother, sadly, has decided to leave to be with a man she met on the internet.  I’m hoping that she will find that she misses us all so much that she wants her life with us back.  Until then, let’s pray and stay as positive as possible.”

This approach states the truth, which I believe children in this situation need, but opens the possibility for hope.  Children will over time form their own conclusions when mama never calls, visits, or comes home.  That parent will have destroyed the relationship with their children all by themselves.

I try to remind folks considering leaving for less than important reasons to stick around and create the kind of homelife that will best send their children into their adulthood with optimism and an open heart.  I tell them that this is their moral obligation…to put themselves second.

Go Ahead; Have A Good Time?

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How do some people call you with these questions if they know what you’re going to say?

I get that question all the time, and today I’m addressing it in a video blog, which you can watch below.

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura.

Novelist David Foster Wallace’s Ironic Commencement Speech

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Friday, September 19, 2008, I was reading the last page of the “Weekend Journal” in The Wall Street Journal.  It was adapted from a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College.  Mr. Wallace, 46, died recently, an apparent suicide.

I thought it odd that an entire page of The Wall Street Journal was dedicated to the musings of a man who opted out of life after giving advice to young people just beginning their adult foray into the trials and tribulations of existence.

The main focus of his presentation to the students seemed to be on the issue of self-centeredness:  “It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth.  Think about it:  there is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of.  The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever.  Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real - you get the idea.  But please don’t worry that I’m getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called ‘virtues.’  This is not a matter of virtue - it is a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.”

First, he is “right on” with the hard-wiring of self-centeredness.  I remember my mother telling me once that when, as a teenager, she experienced the death of her mother from breast cancer, and was consumed with grief, that she looked out her window to see people outside driving, walking, talking, and going about their business as though nothing had happened.  She related feeling shocked that, somehow, the whole world did not stand still as did her own heart.

It is obvious that, of course, we are the most absorbed by our immediate environment and experiences….which pretty much means ourselves.  However, Mr. Wallace’s consistent dismissal of virtues is perhaps what was missing from his life. Seeing, acknowledging, and caring about others does not necessarily come naturally.  It is a virtue taught by parents and community as well as by religious teachings.  One of the most central aspects of religious training is to “love thy neighbor.”  Why?  Just because it’s “nice?”  No, although it is nice.  It is because caring for those outside yourself gives you a connectedness that minimized loneliness and a purpose which minimizes despair.

Towards the end of his speech, he points out:  “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little un-sexy ways, every day.  That is real freedom.”

He then asks the audience to “please don’t dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon.  None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.  It is about making it to 30 or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head.”

So, in attempting to enlighten the young people about a bigger value in life - commitment and obligation to others - he came back to his essential hard-wiring:  it is all about living in a way which makes you not want to kill yourself.  Ironically, his thought process came all the way back to being self-centered.

In eschewing morality, religion, dogma, considerations of eternity - all of which he assembled under “finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon[s],” he disconnected himself from the kind of motivation, identification, support and spiritual reward which may have kept him from committing suicide.  Sad, really.

Marriage 101: Priming the Pump

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Putting romance in your marriage contributes to its success.

So many callers tell Dr. Laura that they never have “time” for romance in their marriages.  If you’re a long-time listener, however, or you’ve read some of her books, you know how Dr. Laura feels about the importance of keeping your marriage alive with small day-to-day kindnesses and reminders of the love that brought you together in the first place.

Watch Dr. Laura’s video blog on one of the most basic things you can do to keep your marriage strong.

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura.

A Single Woman Weighs in on Stay-At-Home Moms

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I’ve been hearing from a lot of stay-at-home moms, and sharing some of their letters with you.  I got this one from a woman who is not a mother, but who has strong feelings about those who stay at home with their kids:

My grandmother was a homemaker.  My mother was divorced, and raised us without our “sperm donor” father, because she chose to leave an abuser.  She worked at a company at night, so that she could walk us to school and help with homework (I didn’t realize the magnitude of this when I was young, but I surely do now).

I’m over 40 now, and don’t have any children, and I work full-time.  However, with every job that I’ve ever taken, I’ve always known in the back of my mind that it would never be a “career,” because I would eventually leave to be a stay-at-home mom.  So, I had to come up with something that I could do to generate income and stay at home:  writing.

I haven’t quite pursued my writing “career” yet.  I watch pregnant women around my office leave, have their babies, and come back.  Some of them are married, and some not.  Either way, I am dumbfounded that they would not rather be at home all day with the baby.

I never wanted to have children as a single woman without a husband.  First, because I didn’t want to have to do everything by myself.  As it is now, I hate taking out my own trash, and wished that I had a husband who didn’t mind taking on that chore!  And second, because each parent’s role is important.  They both matter and make a great contribution.  It’s what all children want:  a mommy and a daddy who are together and care about each other.  So, as I get older and my biological clock “explodes,” I’ve never been tempted to do it alone, i.e., just have a baby because that’s what I want.

Maybe one day, I’ll have a MAN who loves to call me his “girlfriend.”  In the meantime, I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I’ll miss that joy of being able to stay at home with my baby and welcoming my husband home at the end of a hard day at work to provide for us.