When your kids go away

There are some advantages on becoming an empty nester: you have more time for yourself, you can dedicate yourself to causes and new hobbies, you have less dishes to do, less garbage, less mess in your house and you can travel during the off-season, with cheaper fares and hotel deals. Sure, you miss your children, but when they come home it’s always a joy. On the kids’ side, they get to become much more independant, responsible and less spoiled.

So what’s the downside?

The downside is the loss of the sense of family very early in the short time you have with them, before they become full adults with spouses, jobs and kids of their own. Additionally, in America, kids sometimes go to Colleges away from home, in another State and sometimes on a different coast.  Many after graduating do not come to their original area, and end up marrying locals or finding jobs near where they went to school.

The consequences are deep and affect the  bonding and cohesion of a family, and what will become an extended family. Brazilians often criticize Americans for seeing little of their children and how kids seldom visit or call their parents (“only at Thanksgiving and during the holidays”).  The truth is that when kids leave their parents’ home at 17, the bond does get less strong over time, and they get used to being on their own, which is good and bad.

With the high divorce rates, many parents do not have the original family structure and lifestyle to accomodate grown kids and a new boyfriend/girlfriend, and seeing the kids go away to College provides them with the necessary freedom and privacy to start their new lives. Children in that situation lose their primary family which probably pushes them even more to become independant.

Young women and men in Brazil only leave their parents’s home when they get married. It is odd for me now to see 30-somethings living with their parents. One of the main reasons is how expensive apartments are for someone who is starting their professional life. The advantage is that adult kids can care for their parents when there is a need.

My adult kids are in College and Grad school. They often visit, which is wonderful, but I know they might never live with me again. I have told them that I would prefer them to live within driving distance from me. No California please, no matter how nice it out there!

I left my parent’s house at 23 and went far, far away. I spent my whole life missing being with my family during holidays, birthdays and celebrations. I’d call my parents and hear the happy chatter in the background while I was alone with my husband during those occasions and feel some sadness. My children grew up without having grandparents around, and of course the bond between them is not as strong. I also grew up far away from my own grandparents, and when they died, I did not feel an intense sadness. They were people I saw every now and then.

We should prioritize family. There are too many lonely people out there.

Why marriages end

Divorce is very common nowadays , ever since it became socially acceptable  and ever since women were able to support themselves.

When we hear that someone we know is getting a divorce, specially if they are celebrities, our first reaction is to ask: “what happened”? Well, marriages have many enemies. A lot of factors can break a marriage.

I am compiling a list of these factors. If you can think of others, please comment:

 

 

 

 

 

1) One becomes a lot more successful than the other, especially when there is ompetition between the couple.  In happy couples, one’s victory is the other’s, but in unhealthy couples, there is not sense of communion.

2) The woman after several years of marriage loses a lot of weight, becomes “hot” again and wants male attention (I have heard this story a few times).

3) The couple has little in common and starts having separate vacations, hobbies, etc. Eventually one meets someone else.

4) Too little money (puts pressure on both).

5) Too much money (the man usually will look for a younger and better looking model), greed,  excess, vices and a frivolous lifestyle can ensue. 

6) Different sex drives (the ones with more mojo  may eventually look for sex elsewhere).

7) Resentment that grows and grows and creates distance and kills intimacy.

Online contacts making people cheat more.

9) The usual coworker/boss affair.

9) Illness (some husbands leave their wives when she gets very sick).

10) Mental illness, which can develop later in life and makes it very hard for the sane spouse.

11) Susbtance abuse.

12) Death of a child, where one puts blame in the other and neither turns to each other to help witht he pain. 

13) Unemployment for long periods.

14) Depression, for obvious reasons.

15) Merged families. There is a lot of stress in dealing with children that are not yours.

16) Loss of attraction for your spouse. Yes, some couples are not able to keep the attraction due to too much familiarity (and sweatpants ).  When the sex ends, many marriages just break. Some people also have the need to feel the rush of new love. They are “endorphin junkies”. Once the passion is over with their current spouse, they need a new love to start over again.

There are many couples, however, who survive some or many of these challenges and remain committed. What makes them different?

1) A sense of loyalty.

2) A strong sense of family (having extended family around helps).

3) A strong attraction, either intellectual, emotional or physical.

4) Strong bonds formed through similar goals and life purpose. These bonds can be participating in a certain church/religion, politics as a “power couple” (think the Clintons), charities, groups or sports actitivities together. These bonds can be also be as simple as similar political views or religious (or lack thereafter) views. Belonging to a big group of friends and the possibility of losing this social circle may also affect any divorce decision.

5) Fear of being alone. Fear of never being able to fall in love again or find an adequate partner.

6) Financial dependency on each other, more common in women who historically have made less money than men.

7) For couples with younger children,  making a choice to not disrupt their lives.

For many women raised in traditional/non-feminist households, a sense of loyalty to their husbands no matter how badly they behave.

9)  I could mention love. But I think love is something very abstract. It is a combination of friendship, a sense of loyalty and  family and an emotional and pyhsical attachment to someone.

No matter what, divorce has many evils and hazards. A lot people pay the price (the couple, the kids and the whole family). Society pays the price (latch key kids, single moms, etc). And it should be avoided whenever possible.

One type of divorce that does not cause a lot of harm is between younger and childless couples. They each go their own way and it is not different from breaking up with someone you date. Still, it is one of the major problems in our contemporary societies. Fortunately, there are many cases of people who are able to get divorced amicably without major repercussions for all.

Yes, there are many success divorce stories out there, and we would like to hear more about them. What we normally hear is constant conflict between ex and current spouses, ex-in laws, parents who rarely see their children, custody battles, child support battles, jealous or rebellious step-children, evil step-parents, unhappy kids, kids juggling two households, guilt, money battles and other potential conflicts. 

Too bad churches and conservative groups  make us believe they have a monopoly in trying to keep marriages intact. I do admire the work they do towards strenghtening marriages, but in reality, non-believers have a lower divorce rate than religious folks do.  Non-believers have usually a higher education level which supposedly is more conducive in negotiating marital conflicts. Divorce has a higher rate in the southern bible belt states. See here:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistfamiliesmarriage/a/AtheistsDivorce.htm

David Goldman’s battle and success

I learned about David Goldman’s story a year ago. I was touched by it and it spoke deeply to me as a Brazilian woman, as someone who had been married to a foreigner and as someone who loves her children.  I also have a strong sense of injustice and I felt I could help him with my knowledge of Brazilian culture and history and my Portuguese skills. And the one year journey of being involved in this case thus began.

Along with many other supporters, many of them Brazilians like myself, our bumpy ride included days of hope, days of fury, days of despair and hopelessness, days of joy, nights with imsomnia, days of sadness, neglecting of work and spouses and friends. My friends noticed I was calling them less.  I spent countless hours on the www.bringseanhome.org website. I wrote an enormous amount of letters to politicians, media personalities and bloggers both in Brazil and in the USA. I wrote tons of comments on articles about the case in the Brazilian and American media, defending David.

This case has become the biggest success story I know of engaging a huge amount of people to help someone through the internet. I do not remember the internet being used to mobilize efforts of this magnitude before.

The satisfaction I am having seeing this case solved is undescribable. I always believed in the “sacred”, or natural, right of a mother or father in raising their children, unless there is a major impediment such as drug abuse, mental illness, phsyical and emotional abuse, extreme poverty and neglect. David was a perfectly capable father, and a superb one until his son was ripped apart from him cruelly and drastically.

There was a lot of talk about the best interests of the child. The best interest of a child is to be with a loving parent. Studies have shown over and over that children raised by grandparents, uncles or aunts and step-parents do not get the same quality of attention they get from a parent.

A 9 year old child may think he knows what he wants, but we all know that at the age of 9 you just don’t have the maturity to know what really is the best for you. A parent is the only person who should decide on what’s best for the child, providing they are capable. In the absence of BOTH parents, than it is the grandparents, other relatives or whoever the State determines.

I think Sean will obviously miss his maternal grandparents, his step-father, his nanny and his half-sister, but he will also adjust to his new life and will gradually miss them less.  Unfortunately, at this point, the Brazilian family is not showing any signs of emotional intelligence with this case, by spreading more lies and twisting the truth. Instead of trying to build a bridge to David, they continue shooting their own feet. David has said many times he would allow them visitation, but they are confusing their status of GRANDMOTHER and EX-STEP-FATHER with that of a parent. Grandparents and former step-parents can VISIT a child, but do not normally raise them when there is a capable parent. How many times do we all have to repeat that to the maternal family?

With all that has happened in the last few days, there is a strong probability that Silvana Bianchi Ribeiro, the grandmother, and Joao Paulo Lins e Silva, the step-father, will be a bad influence on the child’s adpatation to his new life with his father. We have not seen them praise David to Sean or try to make Sean’s transition easier. If it were my child, I would monitor each and every contact from them until I felt that they could be a positive influence instead of a malicious one. Sean needs time to feel comfortable with his father and regain the bond they once had.  David has his extended family (great parents, sister, brother in law, nephew and niece) very close by, and that will help Sean have a sense of belonging.

As a child who was 4 when I first came to the United States with my family and 9 when I moved back to Brazil, I know Sean will adapt quickly. Children are so incredibly resilient, specially when they they have love and protection from their parents. They learn languages, they make friends and adapt to the new routines much faster than adults do.

Watch here for the first steps Sean and David are taking together to have a productive and happy life ahead of them:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34619335#34619335

Here’s to Sean and David!

My Telework Center Dream

One of the trends that I predict we will see growing in the near future is the proliferation of teleworking centers. The word teleworking brings to mind working from home, which is the most common, especially amongst government workers.

The current administration has been making a push towards teleworking, which now involves about 20 percent of the workforce. Typically, people telework only one or two days a week. There is resistance in allowing workers to telecommute every day of the week, because middle management particularly have the “out of sight, out of control” mentality. There is a lack of trust on how their employees will use their time, and visions of them lying on their sofas watching Oprah and eating popcorn come to mind. However, the nature of work has changed considerably. The majority of office work is computer based. Results can be measured by productivity, and not by physical presence in an office.

The advantages of telework are already well known. Less cars in the road, less traffic and pollution. Less dependance on foreign oil, less expenses, less stress. Workers can be close to their children’s schools and participate more actively in their communities.

With the suburbanization of America, people are living further and further away from work. For employers, teleworkers can mean less office space, cutting rent costs. Unfortunately, workers in the service, construction, security, medical and educational fields will not be able to take advantage of teleworking.

With the advancements on technology, such as wide band internet access and high definition flat screens for teleconferencing, you can really do almost everything from a remote location. However, not everyone has the equipment and the appropriate environment at home to work comfortably and in privacy, like those with small children, dogs and no office space except a kitchen table. Add to that the fact that being home alone 5 days a week can be very isolating and boring.

That is when the new concept of teleworking centers comes into play. Teleworking centers are offices located in specific neighborhoods, to cater to office worker within a 5 mile radius. Workers can quickly drive or walk to these centers, where they will find a fully equipped office space. Not only that, they will be able to interact with other workers in a common space such a lounge or a break room. They will have available IT help with their computers. They can be visited by a telework coordinator from time to time.

I think telework centers will change the face of America. You can see the trend starting with the town centers in the Washington DC area. New town centers, replicating the old city centers of the 1900’s, with plenty of walking space, started popping up. Reston Town Center in the Northern Virginia suburb and the Kentlands in Montgomery County, MD, are successful examples. With telework centers in every American suburb, we will improve the quality of life of many people.

My dream teleworking center would have:

1) A private office space with state of the art computers

2) A gym

3) A coffee shop close by

4) A lounge area to socialize

5) A kitchen

6) Secure entrance

7) Restaurants and food services nearby

And, last but not least, a NAP room. Yes, you heard it right. A nap room with a timer where people could take a short nap to restore themselves. After all, office work can get boring…and make you sleepy. Quality of life after all!

The hearing on International Child Abduction December 2, 2009

I had the wonderful opportunity to be present at the Congressional hearing on international abduction promoted by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ).  Several congressmen present, as well as Brazilian and American media and the witnesses. The testimonies from the Left Behind Parents were touching and powerful.

David Goldman’s testimony was specially moving. I sat there thinking:  everbody knows cases of parents, specially some fathers, who do not want the headache of raising their children, and this man is going through all this trouble just to be able to have a normal life with HIS son.

I also met and talked to some of these left behind parents. And after one year involved in David’s case, I finally met him.  My impression of him can be defined by these adjectives: a composed, balanced, warm, classy, good human being. The kind of father every woman would wish for her child. So why, why is this father deprived of raising his own son?

Here is the answer: the selfishness of a jealous second husband, the immorality of the mother’s family, the emptiness, emotional disorder and clinginess of a grandmother, the irresponsability of those who support them and the corruption in the Brazilian Judiciary.

For details on the hearing and to read all the testimonies, go to: www.bringseanhome/forum/showthread.php?t=2222

To watch David’s testimony at the hearing, click here: http://gallery.me.com/costavideo#101263

The absurdity behind the idea of God

Ever since I realized I was an atheist and came out of the religious cloud I had been brainwashed into since childbirth, I find myself constantly shaking my head when I see adults talking about God as if they were 5 year olds waiting anxiously for a glimpse of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

It is acceptable to believe in God when you are a child. You are surrounded by authority figures: your mother and father, your teacher, your nanny, your grandparents. God is just one more. As a child, you also lack the reasoning skills to examine what does and does not make sense behind the idea of fantastic beings, tales, monsters, fairies and Santa Claus. Many of these beings inspire fear, idolatry or respect in you. When adults, books or TV shows talk about them, you believe them. After all, they are authority figures who know better.

Once someone reaches their teenage years and has access to more information, it is normal to discredit these beings one by one. Santa Claus and monsters are the first to go. You might still believe in aliens and the Loch Ness monster, because maybe there could be a scientific explanation for them after all. And you sometimes carry on believing in ghosts because you still think there might be life after death-and because there are so many ghost movies around.

Why is that this discovery process does not apply to the notion of a God? Why is it that only a few people reach the conclusion by themselves that God is just one more mythological figure? I would say some people are just more skeptical by nature. They have an inquisitive mind and they like Science. They read about and investigate Evolution, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Or they came across an atheist blog, website or book and have a AHA moment. Or they were fortunate enough to grow up in a secular household.

I grew up with Catholic parents. I used to hear this sentence with frequency: “Let’s leave it in the hands of God”. How can someone with a normal intelligence level and intellect believe that this is a sensible way to conduct your life? Leave it to the hands of God? If you are having a surgery, who will be responsible for the success of the operation, God or your surgeon and anesthesiologist? If you have a job interview, should you be ready and prepared or leave it to the hands of God?

The idea that a power/man/woman/old man with a white beard is responsible for everyone in the planet is daunting. Why would one being have that much power? Who wants to be watched every single second? Why would we want to die and go to heaven for ever and ever floating around? Why would this power (some more open minded people, in the process of becoming agnostics, say they don’t believe in God but in a “higher power”: what is the difference anyway?) make so many mistakes and punish so many innocent people?

We all know that the belief in God is comforting for so many people who need a father figure to feel safe. We also know that many people erroneously associate belief in God with being good and moral. We know that in the early centuries the belief in God was a way to explain natural phenomenon which Science was not yet able to explain. Still, the notion of a God Almighty is a lot more absurd than the need to have that father figure. However, we see many educated people believing and defending their belief with passion. There are those who also believe they have a guardian angel watching their back. My first thought is: “crazy much”?

Pen Jillette described in one sentence the disappointment I feel that so many people in this country hang on to the notion of God. He said, when explaining to Joy Behar why he is a hardcore atheist: “I don’t believe that there are people who believe in God”

Should you tell your boyfriend you want to get married?

Hmm…I can see some feminists saying I am telling women to be manipulative. I can see people comparing my advice to “The Rules”. Still, I am not the kind of woman who thinks women have to bend over backwards to please men, and I certainly am for women speaking their mind.

However, from living for several decades and seeing women get into all sorts of trouble with the whole proposal/engagement/marriage thing, I have a tiny suspicion: the more you show a man you want to get married (to him, hopefully), the less he will want it. It is sooo biological. We cannot deny evolution, and we cannot deny that men are usually less eager to get married. All those fears about losing their freedom, being accountable, being responsible, not being able to sleep with other women (unless they become rich and famous like David Letterman:)), etc, come into play. So we often hear more stories about men postponing marriage or not wanting to talk about it than women (read my post about commitment phobia from 2008).

Here is the deal: men used to be hunters. They like challenges, and they quickly lose interest in a woman who is too easy a catch. That’s why some of them don’t call after they had sex with you on that one night stand. You can be the most beautiful woman, look like a model, have the brain of  an Einstein and the kindness of Mother Theresa, but if you pressure him to get married, or indicate that you badly want to get married (even after 2 years of dating), he will drag his feet.

Why? Because he wants it to be HIS IDEA. He wants to have to convince you!

What if many years go by, you never say anything, and he still doesn’t ask you to marry him? In that case dear, he really doesn’t want to get married, unless he came from a planet where there is no marriage. You then may want to cut your losses and move on to greener pastures, or accept having a relationship without marriage if you love him (without making you bitter in the process).

Last Sunday I read an interesting article in the “Love Me” section of the Washington Post. This woman was 32 and divorced. She met this really nice guy, and she told him she did not want to get married again; that she thougt it was an opressive institution for women (??, are we back in the 70’s?). Bingo. That did it. Her BF of course did not take long to propose and asked her to marry him with this original line: “Do you want to grow extremely old with me”? I loved it.

So girls…if the subject of marriage comes up (YOU did not start it!) and your BF asks your opinion, how about saying you are not thinking of marriage? Do you feel that is acting? That it goes against your principles? That you just cannot lie to him? In that case, how about saying: “I will consider getting married when I find the right person”. That does not make you a manipulator or a liar, and might well make him want to become that right person.

And please don’t break up with him if the years go by and he ignores the fact that you may want to get married and say: “I am breaking up with you because you don’t want to get married”. He might try to get you back and even propose, but it will still not be his idea, not something he REALLY wants. Basically he is marrying you so he doesn’t lose the relationship entirely, and the consequences are known to many people: a not so committed husband.

So..don’t ooh and ahh when you see an engagement ring ad, when you walk by a wedding dress in a window display or try to have “the talk” with him.  He needs to want it too. Badly.

So what do you guys and gals think of this approach?  Can we really keep our mouths shut abotu something so important to us? Is this approach too fake and manipulative, or wise?

The power of family meals

I was talking to my brother recently and he told me he had discussed a certain issue with his kids over lunch that day. That hit me: wow, it wasn’t even a weekend day, but a work day.

Something almost forgotten these days is the family meal. This is a great habit that bonds parents and kids and provides an opportunity to have important talks with them. In Brazil, they are more common for 2 reasons: parents still come home for lunch, and many families still have maids preparing the main meal of the day, which is lunch. In the US, harried mothers and fathers fix some dinner and many times everyone just grabs their plate and sit in front of the TV, or the computer.

But even in Brazil the family meal is in decline. Less people have maids and more mothers work full jobs. I confess that I only did that with my children on special occasions. Who wants the trouble of setting up the table after working all day? You’re lucky if you have a home cooked meal, as many busy moms just get some ready made food from some supermarket, or even worse, fast food on the way home. Unfortunately, a good opportunity to talk to them without distractions is gone. Maybe we should all use Thanksgiving as that one time a year where we can restore the family meal, a wonderful practice.

The woman’s checklist

It seems that women have so much to do in order to keep up the appearances, literally. Especially as we age, there are so many things we need to do on a regular basis not only to look good but to be healthy. 

There are only 24 hours in a day, and most of us work full time,  sleep about 7 hours a night and sometimes have a husband, boyfriend (or a girlfriend), children or a pet. We also want to watch a favorite show on TV, read the news, listen to music or browse the internet. Some of us even try to keep a blog, however sparingly we write on it

On top of all that, there are the little things we need to do to ensure we don’t look like old hags from the outside, and all the healthful things to ensure that our insides don’t look like raggedy as well. Because after a certain age, all those annoying things start happening to our bodies, and if we don’t prevent them, we will be just like our old great-aunt who complained of every pain under the sun. Tennis elbow, hemroids, Aquilles tendon, heartburn, restless legs syndrome, cellulite, ingrown nail, cervical cancer, high cholesterol….the list goes on.

So besides eating healthy foods and getting your daily exercise, what other things do we normally have to do to keep ourselves looking good inside and out?

-floss daily

-take multivatimins and calcium daily

-do our nails, once a week or so

-wax or shave pubic hair, underarm hair, legs, moustache..:)

-tweeze those unwanted hairs on our chin that start after the age of 30

-pluck or wax your eyebrows

-retouch your roots every time they show, whether they are dark or grey.

-style or blowdry your hair after you wash it

-botox once every 6 months

-fillers if you are over 45 +

-Pap smear (every year)

-colonoscopy every 10 years if you have no polyps

-mammography every one or two years

-endoscopy if you have any stomach ache/heartburn

-densitometry

-moisturize your face every morning and evening

-moisturize your hands

-moisturize your feet

-moisturize your whole body!

-get a tan, whether a suntan or fake tan to look better

-walk on uncomfortable high heels to look sexy

-have a complete check up every year-heart, blood tests, etc

-put on make up every single day

-wear jewelry almost every day

-make sure your shoes match your outfit and your purse

-go shopping for clothes from the “new season”

-take a shower every day

-make sure you have bowel movements and defecate every day

-brush your teeth completely twice a day

-pluck those nose hairs if you have them

-file your nails

-have plastic surgery when things start going downhill too much

Some men also follow many of the items listed above, and some metrossexuals do it all, but it is clear that the modern woman has many things to remember on her day to day. Whenever we forget any of the above we feel miserable, as if we were neglecting ourselves.  A lot of women know that feeling. The thing is: we are not perfect, and we cannot control everything. Let’s not beat ourselves on the head if we aren’t able to do it all. Life is too short!

 

 

False Friends

No, this is not a post about backstabbing friends and how to avoid them/watch out for signs. Although I could talk about that too..let’s say, a friend who is never happy for you when you accomplish something, never compliments you and seems to like you better when you are down.

This is a post about words that sound similar in different languages and have the same roots but have distinct meanings. Hey, distinct is one of them .

Also called Colour Words, these words cause a lot of confusion for Brazilians living in the U.S. and Americans living in Brazil. It’s funny listening to my Brazilian friends when visiting; they are not aware of some different meanings because they haven’t really lived in America or spent significant time here to learn all of them.

Here is a website with False Friends in Portuguese and English: http://tiny.cc/lrC7c

That list is very short though. There are many others, more than I can think of now, and I invite my fellow Brazilians who come across this blog to add some more:

ENGLISH                                    PORTUGUESE

1. Compromise (to setttle)-Compromisso (a date, appointment, commitment)

2. Assist (to help)-Assistir (to watch)

3. Absolutely (totally, yes)-Absolutamente (No!, completely)

4.Office (workplace)-Ofício (profession)

5. Condone (to agree with something someone did)-condenar (to find guilty, to disagree)

6. Academy (Learning Institution)-Academia (gym!)

7. Gymnastics (Olympic sport)-Ginãstica (any kind of exercise)

8. Preservative (chemicals added to foods)-Preservativo (condom!)

9. Push (to push!!)-Puxe (to pull!)-this is a source of great confusion for both Americans and Brazilians

10. Distraction (something that takes your attention)-Distração (also entertainment)

11. Distinct (different)-Distinto (Honorable)

Anyhow, False Friends can add to the stress of living in a different country (Germans, French, etc, all have colour words with English) as well as cause some communication problems for Brazilian-American couples.

One of them is the word sleepy. For us Brazilians, sleepy means wanting to sleep.  Americans say “tired”.  In Portuguese, you can be tired without wanting to sleep. You can be tired after a game of tennis and not want to sleep. And you can feel like sleeping without being tired. In Brazil tired is after some strenuous exercise…it took some time for  my husband and I to understand each other on this