Here’s a 6 slide PowerPoint about the use of fireworks.

Please do share your thoughts.

Over the last few years more and more ‘parents’ seem to be talking about their children ‘still’ living at home. Here are some of the reasons that I’ve heard about: -

1. They can’t afford to rent,
2. They can’t get a mortgage,
3. They’re unemployed
4. It’s simply cheaper to stay at home

As far as I can see there seems to be a few different scenarios. This is how I see it but please do let me know if you have a different view.

• Parents are happy for their children to stay with them until they ‘settle down’ with someone.
• Parents want their children to move out and stand on their own two feet.
• Parents feel lumbered and do not want to support their children into their 30′s or beyond.
• Parents are willing to let their children stay with them if they help contribute whether it’s by paying bills, giving something in terms of rent etc.

What do you think?

Is it OK to support your children unconditionally until they leave the nest?

Should they contribute and relieve their parents of some responsibilities when they are old enough?

This was sent to me by email. Whether you believe in satan or not; doesn’t ‘the plan’ ring true for you? Doesn’t it sound accurate?

For those of you who aren’t comfy with the satan and God bit…take that out. Maybe it’ll be useful to simply analyse the use of your time. Let me know what you think…

Satan called a worldwide convention of demons. In his opening address he said:
“We can’t keep people from going to pray.”
“We can’t keep them from reading their holy books and knowing the truth.”
“We can’t even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their God “.
“Once they gain that connection with GOD, our power over them is broken.”
“So let them go to their prayers; let them have their covered dish dinners, BUT steal their time, so they don’t have time to develop a Relationship with GOD.”

“This is what I want you to do,” said the devil:

“Distract them from gaining hold of their GOD and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!”

“How shall we do this?” his demons shouted.
“Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds,” he answered.

“Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow.”
“Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles.”
“Keep them from spending time with their children.”
“As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!”
“Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice.”
“Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive. To keep the TV, VCR, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-religious music constantly.”
“This will jam their minds and break that union with God.”
“Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers.”
“Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day.”
“Invade their driving moments with billboards.”
“Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering, free products, services and false hopes..”
“Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what’s important, and they’ll become dissatisfied with their wives.”
“Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night.”
“Give them headaches too! ”
“If they don’t give their husbands the love they need, they will begin to look elsewhere.”
“That will fragment their families quickly!”
“Give them distractions to distract them from teaching their children the real meaning of life.”
“Even in their recreation, let them be excessive.”
“Have them return from their recreation exhausted.”
“Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God’s creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead.”

“Keep them busy, busy, busy!”

“And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences. ”
“Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from GOD.”
“Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause.”

“It will work!”
“It will work!”
It was quite a plan!

The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing people everywhere to get busier and more rushed, going here and there.

Having little time for their God or their families. Having no time to tell others about the power of GOD to change lives. The plan worked!

I guess the question is, has the devil been successful in changing YOUR life?

You be the judge.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while now. Although I’ve had discussions about this ‘confusion’ before, I’ve not been enthused to write about it until now. Something’s different for me. Thus I’m sharing it with you and hoping that you will share your thoughts after reading this post.

From the horses mouth (the mouths of some men)

• Men are good at single tasking.
• They are skilled at focusing on one task and doing it well.
• Multi tasking is not for them.

Why is this an issue?

Well for many reasons women were introduced to work. Men went to war & women stepped up to take on previously, ‘non women’ roles. Equal rights for men and women meant women could expect equality in all its forms including pay. Increases in the standard of living and individual expectations has resulted in families ‘needing’ dual incomes. Mobility in work has had an impact on wages & what time workers leave and return home. I could go on but I wont! This post is about the ‘now’ not how we got here.

So we’re now in a position where many men and women assume, expect & demand an education that goes beyond 18. What’s the point of having the qualification if you can’t make a career of it, right? So everything else takes a back seat while we educate, build a career, aim for a promotion or two & get a higher, more ‘comfortable’ wage. Whilst all this is going on some people will be saving and possibly investing in property which they may rent out or live in. Thus having an extra income, a pad of their own. Independence perhaps.

THEN comes the idea of finding a partner, possibly getting married and/or having kids, buying a home together and so on.

However, the years of changes mean that women have been forced to become self sufficient as they are no longer ‘kept’ by their fathers or older brothers. I wont use this space to debate whether that was ever true, if that’s OK. For this post, can we just accept that someone ‘kept’ them until these changes took place? However, NOW their life is their own and they can and do make their own decisions. There’s much more freedom, expectations of women have changed, expectations of mothers and fathers have altered dramatically and the norm is no longer what it used to be!

As a result, ‘the woman’ has enjoyed and earned a life which has been rich with choice & independence; it’s been empowering and so much more.

When these women meet a man who fulfils their needs they will want to compromise without regressing. A partnership means you work at things jointly. You share. Right?

This would mean that, if the dual income is necessary, both partners will be working. Can you then expect the ‘woman’ to come home and cook, clean, maintain the home; any more than you expect the ‘man’ to?

This is where it gets interesting!

I know men who have ‘lived out’ but haven’t really!

They’ve gone to the family home for dinner each night, unless they’re going out!

Clothes to be washed are taken to the family home.

Their flat is not cleaned OR they pay a cleaner to do it.

Food shopping isn’t necessary as they don’t cook.

Are you seeing the picture? They’re not independent at all!

So what’s the actual point of having that property to live in then? Something else, I don’t think we can get into here!

So let’s get back to the scenario where a couple have moved in together. They both ‘need’ to work. Thus they both need to do the tasks in the home.

The men I know say that they’re no good at doing all that stuff. They can focus on bread winning and only that. If that’s the case; they now need to earn enough so that the ‘couple’ feel comfortable, rather than, restrained or trapped; so that the woman can reduce her hours or stop working. She, if willing, can then cook, clean, raise the kids if they choose to have any, maintain relationships with family and mutual friends, organise socials with them, keep track of what’s needed in the home, shop for it and so on.

If this isn’t possible and both of them need to work; surely it’s fair for both people in the relationship to look at the ‘tasks’ that need doing and split them between them. The key here is to make sure that what they take on plays on their strengths.

When the situation doesn’t favour either party; because we are so sure of what we want; people are quicker than before, to make changes and move on if it doesn’t pan out. Is that fair to say or do you disagree?

The knock on affect of this is that men and women alike are aware of this trend so the flat that they own becomes a place to go if things don’t work out. The income is needed in case their relationship doesn’t work out. One guy told me it’s all an insurance policy to make sure we don’t get left high and dry.

What do you think?

Are we more cynical and as a result, putting structures in place so that we have ‘an insurance policy’ in case things don’t work out? Are we more greedy? More demanding? Less giving? Less tolerant? More confident? More assertive?

I am blogging about this because I felt SO proud, warm and full of hope on Saturday 18th December 2010.

Suraj, mum and I went out shopping. When we left it wasn’t snowing and if it was forecasted, we didn’t know about it! Otherwise, perhaps we wouldn’t have gone. Perhaps not. Anyway, we were in Harrow Weald and it started snowing.

The snow wasn’t settling at all so we didn’t fret. However, when we looked again, the road was covered! The snowfall had changed and it was now very different to how it was 20 minutes before!

We rushed what we were doing and we left as soon as we could.

When we were on our way home we saw several people who were skidding or getting stuck.

We saw a Jeepy type of car with a flashing light overtake us and figured it had a medic in it. However, on our journey, we saw the car a few times and we soon realised that they were helping people out by towing them.

When we were near Rayners Lane, where the bike shop is; there was a guy walking in the road. He didn’t have an illuminous jacket on, he wasn’t part of any company, he was a ‘normal’ person & guess what he was doing? He was present and ready. For what? To help. He did nothing else except walk and be on the lookout for cars that needed pushing.

It was so nice to see!

Unfortunately when we got closer to the end of the 1 way system by Rayners Lane there was one van in particular, which was having difficulty with steering and skidding. A few people overtook the car. Others beeped. Some went passed slowly and gave dirty looks as they went. Nobody got out to help push the car. But then…1 passer by offered to steer the car while the owner of the van pushed and another passer by helped too.

Did you come across any positive experiences like this?

I was talking to a friend about this.

He was saying that there was no self respect in receiving benefits. He said that doing the honourable thing should come first. He explained that by this he means;

I would rather struggle than sponge. I have never claimed a day’s unemployment benefit in my life, and never plan to. I work hard, pay taxes and expect nothing. He continued to say that nobody in this country is as desperate as some people who live in Africa or India. They literally have nothing! We ALL can do SOMETHING. Something for ourselves and for society. This is the basis of modern progressive conservatism – doing whatever you can for the benefit of society and ones self.

A few weeks later I was talking to a girl at school. She said she walks home with her older brother because mum has 3 jobs and dad has 2. She goes to her gran’s house after school because the family care for her. She is very ill. She told me: -

‘….mum doesn’t want to claim benefits and be judged…’

So they work as much as they can, look after her gran and rely on the members of the family to support each other.

The brother who takes his little sister to gran’s also wakes his younger siblings up and makes them breakfast. Thus he’s always getting to school late. He’s only 10 himself.

I don’t think either situation is ideal but this example illustrates a family who are struggling, trying their best to remain ‘off’ benefit but as a result, have no or little time for their children.

Another family have a child who has ADD/ADHD. He’s been diagnosed with it and this means that he’s categorised as ‘disabled’. Mum says she copes. She’s not used his categorisation to claim disability benefit although she struggles and could really do with the support.

There are many cases where people who can claim don’t.

There are many employers who fiddle benefits for employers who don’t exist.

There are many employers who don’t put employees on their books for too long to escape being responsible for certain employee rights and benefits.

Is it really a clear cut reality of ‘those who sponge are fraudulent and undeserving’ and those who don’t claim are a ‘better’ people?

What do you think of this poem?

There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west -
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox