What happened to AOL?

Back in the days when AOL was paid, it could be considered a decent place to get your news online. Not anymore. AOL has turned into a tabloid deceiving website. I still use AOL email because I have had it for 11 years (I remember AOL 3.0), and I still think that as an email it is easy to use and has a good spam fighter. However, the news, ah the news, has become a joke. Links that are meant to lure viewers to click on them under false pretenses, old news, links that take you to a website where the promised story does not exist..recently a headline read: “Why women are going nude”.  I clicked on it curious as to this new trend I was not aware of, only to end up in a beauty and make up page talking about the nude lipstick, and of course selling them too.

AOL has become part of the dumbing down of America. Constant headlines about unimportant starlets (who cares about Miley Cyrus, fabricated by her former-glory father?) and people that should not be newsworthy. Sales ads packaged as news.

AOL has some columnists that are to die for: of rage. They are weak and uninformed or prejudiced. With so many good bloggers out there, why can’t AOL find better ones for free?

I miss the old AOL. I guess when it becomes all about money than we all lose.

Empty Nest Syndrome

As human life gets more and more complex, new terms come up to define what before existed but was unamed. Restless Legs Syndrome, Narcisistic Personality Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder (lack of sunlight in winter) and Empty Nest Syndrome comes to mind. Kids with ADHD in the past were just “disorderly, full of energy or hyper”. Girls with ADD were just “distracted, dreamers, umotivated”. Depressed people were called lazy or sad or unmotivated.  Men with NPD were just vain, self centered, selfish or egomaniacs.  People with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder just had a bad habit (nail biting, hair pulling, etc).

Empty nest syndrome is a relatively new phenomena in modern human life ever since kids started to leave their parents’ home at the age of 17 to go live in College dorms. It is an uniquely American phenomena since in most other countries kids continue living at home while attending College and many times only leave their parents house to get married. And if they don’t get married, they stay home indefinitely.

In many countries, young people do not make enough to pay for rent or buy their own place until much later in life. The 30 year mortgage is unheard of in many of those countries with less stable economies. Therefore, people need to save money all through their 20’s in order to be able to buy a house, sometimes with a 5 year payment plan.

Additionally, the sense of family and extended family is weaker in America. Many kids cannot wait to have their freedom and many parents cannot wait for the kids to leave so they can travel and dedicate themselves to their hobbies.

Still, there are many parents who suffer when they see their children leaving home at such an early age. As a mother, it is especially difficult for me. It is sexist to say it is more difficult for mothers but we see more cases of mothers crying after dropping off their kids in a College campus than fathers. Obviously, men have a harder time showing their feelings.

For those who had their kids in their 20’s, being childless while still in your 40’s is a strange situation. Suddenly, you have no more family! If you happen to be married, you go back to being a couple and sometimes do not know what to do with each other. For divorced mothers, it can be very lonely. She goes from being a mother and taking care and responsability for her children to being suddenly single and childless.  As if she had never gotten married and had kids!

To make matters worse, some kids are so busy with their college lives they barely contact their parents-unless they need cash

Many of these parents are still young themselves and find themseves with a lot more time in their hands. If it sounds attractive to have all that freedom and extra time, it is also a loss of the life you planned in your early 20’s: to get married one day and to have a family. Sure your kids come back, but they come back for short periods, and they never feel the same at their parents home anymore. As for the parents, they get used to the silence and order and have a hard time getting used to their kids stuff strewn everywhere.

As more and more Baby Boomers and Generation X parents go through a delayed adolescence, or a second adolescence (as well as a second marriage), the more they relish their newfound freedom. Now they can party until wee hours! Now they can go on tropical island trips in September when the fares are cheaper! After all, 50 is the new 40, right? Or is it the new 30?

I tend to be somewhere in the middle, pending more to the feeling of loss. For me, seeing my last child going away to College is a mixed blessing.  I am happy that she is starting a new chapter of her life, but I do feel that she will change into an adult and not be so close to me. I cried when my firstborn was left in a strange dorm in a strange city, and I feel I will cry this time again.

The dumbing down of America

A lot of people have written about this. This one is especially funny although I can think of many more situations, stories and facts that illustrate this phenomenon. Check it out: http://www.rockypatterson.com/DUMBING/index.html

The dumbing down of an entire country is the result of different factors. The education problem is the most serious. Although free primary and secondary education are so great for our middle class pockets, in order for cities to attend to every student there has to be a standardization of curriculum and a leveling of demand. Which means teachers cannot reach too high for fear some students won’t follow the rest. This means very bright students waste time. Second, the need for teachers (not many people willing to work for those salaries) makes the requirements loser than they should be; therefore you have teachers who have very little understanding of the world outside their county….yes, I really meant to write county, not country

The media is also a major problem. In order to attract viewers to compete against the Internet, television has gone above and beyond to create shows that cater to human emotions instead of human intelligence.

Unhealthy lifestyles and food not only makes children fatter but also dumber. Children are the future of a country, so there you go, thanks Kraft, Pepsi, Cheetos and fast food joints.

If you turn on the TV nowadays and your IQ is a just a little above average, it is hard not to feel disgusted. What happened to smart and well read teens and young adults? Why does America equate a book smart young person with a dork, geek and other unflattering names? Why is that every teenage girl depicted on reality shows is as shallow as a saucer and dumber than a doorknob? Who on earth cares about seeing the daily lives of people who have no business being famous, like Dina Lohan and the Kardashians? What are these people’s contributions to the world? The worse of them all: Paris Hilton. For years she has taught every girl in this country to be vain, shallow, stupid, a party girl, obsessed with her looks, to hit on every man, drink like a fish, to drink and drive, pose nude and be useless to society.  At least Britney Spears, another horrible example for young people, has some talent, however electronically fabricated it is.

I wonder when did intelligence cease to be a desirable trait in men and women…now it seems that only looks and money/fame count.

We have to witness celebrities making bad judgments in their personal lives, veritable train wrecks, and from a distance we have to watch and cannot do anything. I would love to say to these so-called “models”: “Honey, when you marry a rock singer with tons of tattoos all over his body don’t expect him to be a faithful family man”. Yes, he will soon be found in a club surrounded by other bimbos at two in the morning, but what did you expect? And Denise Richards, a pretty face does not happiness guarantee: do you really think your sex-addict husband would have changed his orientation for you? Do you think you are ”different” from other woman? And why on Earth did you have a romance with your friend’s husband, even if it started after they split? Don’t you know your friends’ husbands are off limits?

And the new woman who Charlie Sheen married: do you think you will succeed in changing him with your love? Tough luck. And the woman who already is dating Peter Cook: honey, do you want such baggage?

It is amazing how many bimbo-like women out there desperate to hang out with any B List to D List celebrity no matter how twisted their lives are.

The number of celebrities getting DUI’s, in rehab, cheating on their spouses and irresponsibly getting married just for fun while at the same time being glorified, getting away with it and even becoming more famous must have some impact on the dumbing down of this country (and probably on the rest of the world which copies anything that comes from Hollywood).

Tabloids and gossip websites seem to be all people are reading nowadays.  It is known that in times of economic stress people turn to mindless forms of entertainment to distract from reality. The Hogan family distress and their troubles provide entertainment to millions instead of the concern and indignity it should provoke.  There is no question that young people whose minds and morals are being formed, and in the absence of parental guidance (parents are less involved with their children’s lives due to working long hours, divorce and wanting a “fun” life themselves-middle aged people living like teenagers) are more vulnerable to these bad examples of how to conduct your life.

The internet has helped expose another shocking fact: the number of quasi-illiterate people in this country. Few people can write the English language correctly. Hey, English is not my first language and I write it better than most Americans; what gives? I rarely even use spell check.  Bad spelling means someone does not read. What happened with young people reading books?

Just go to any message board (especially AOL, are all the low IQ people on AOL??) and see how many dumb, angry and misinformed people there are out there. I feel like crying when I read those posts. I sigh in relief when I can find someone who can put 3 well spelled and coherent sentences together.

We have a lot more information at out fingertips with the advent of the internet, but somehow we all managed to get dumb and dumber.

Advice for American men dating Brazilian women

You cannot really generalize that all Brazilians or Brazilian women for that mattter are the same. Brazilians differ in terms of socio-economic status, class system, educational levels and ethnicity.
On the other hand, there are some cultural similarities in the way people are raised. Don’t be surprised if both of you have communication problems due to upbringing differences, as well as food preferences and other habits that can cause trouble.

Here are some general pointers (which I repeat may not apply to all Brazilian women):

1) There is a strong sense of family in Brazil. The extended family is also important. Married people or people in committed relationships do not go to “Boys Night Out” or “Girls Night Out” where they can flirt with other people. Men might play soccer with their buddies in the afternoon, women might have a coffee and shoppping with their female friends, but they do not go out at night and leave their partner alone at home. No strip clubs for men in committed relationships either. That is all a no no and even shocking for us Brazilians.

2) When it comes to engagement and weddings, Brazilian women are used to some different things. We do not require you spend thousands on a diamond ring. We do not have that tradition (see my post about engagement rings). We are happy with a simpler ring or just the wedding bands.  Some of us though, after living in America and seeing so many De Beers ads, may want a diamond ring too.

3) Do not even think of having a dalliance with hookers and strippers just because it is your bachelor’s party. We consider that cheating and don’t be surprised if your fiance cancels the wedding if she finds it out. We do not even have the bachelor party tradition.  Very few men celebrate that, while the bride’s friends do get together to get her presents for her new home. Sometimes men participate as well (a tradition that is also starting here).

4) Latin people in general are more emotional and more possessive, keep that in mind when you fight with her.

5) Women are raised to be feminine, to do female things (they may have piano and ballet lessons, not baseball or rough sports). Many are stil raised to get married and have babies as the first focus and their career as a secondary pursuit-a necessary evil. Women are encouraged to spend a lot of their time in their looks-body, clothes and hair. Staying attractive is sine qua non in a culture that judges people by how they look.

6) Even though racism is not as pervasive and divisionary as in the U.S.A., lighter skinned Brazilians look down on darker skinned Brazilians. They see darker Brazilians as belonging to the lower social classes.

7) Brazil still has a strong division of classes. Not only it is quite visible but there is little interaction between the classes (unless the “lower classes” are working for the “higher” ones). Sad but true.

8) Many middle class Brazilian girls were raised with maids. Therefore, they are not used to doing housework, which is seen as something beneath them. Working with your hands in Brazil is also associated with the lower classes.

Remember that Brazil had slavery just like the American South, and one of the consequences of slavery  is that it can take several generations for their descendants to reach the same level of success in life that their former owners had.  Therefore,  Brazilians from African descent became part of the struggling poor in Brazil-they had a harder time getting education and better jobs. Fortunately this situation is slowly improving. Brazilian men and women oftentimes do not know how to fix things or are impractical dure to cheap labor and being catered to all their lives.

9) Brazilian women expect the man to be a gentleman. They like a man who opens doors, drives them places, changes their oil, etc. when it comes to practical things. But when it comes to decision making, Brazilian women are opinionated and are not shrinking violets. They expect you to respect them and share your decisions with them if part of a couple.

10) Never, under any circumstances, call your GF or wife the B word. Name calling in Brazil is considered extremely offensive, and a man should never call his wife names no matter how terrible the argument is. A wife, like a mother or a daughter, is sacred. American movies show a lot of cursing (the F word seems to be the most popular). Brazilians associate cursing with gangsters and lowlifes.

11) The mother in law thing. Many older women in Brazil are in dire economical situation due to widowhood, divorce, lack of opportunities, low paid jobs. The older generation of women did not usually work outside the home. Therefore, they expect their children to take care of them. Many of these mothers interfere in their childrens’ relationships and try to control their daughters or sons.

They are also often lonely and live vicariously through their offspring. They use guilt tactics to keep the children catering to their needs and see the children-in-law as the devil themselves. They take their kids’s side if they have problems with their spouses and sometimes destroy marriages with their interference. Not every mother in law is like that: the ones with careers, the ones in happy relationships and the ones with a life of their own. So beware of the dependant MIL!

12) You and her (or him, in case of an American woman with an American man)  might have differences when it comes to how to use your time. Brazilians consider Sunday sacred. It is not a day to work, but a day to lounge around, go to the beach, have a barbecue by the pool, watch soccer or Formula One, visit with friends, go sightseeing, nap or watch movies and other leisure actitivities.

Saturday they might run errands, but never on Sundays! It is not only the Catholic influence but also the fact that in their minds, the work week is for work, while the weekend is for pleasure and rest. So if you like to tinker with your car, wash your car, rebuild the roof, clean the garage or mow the lawn on a Sunday you will find resistance. She will feel abandoned. In her mind, you should be with her and not ignoring her with “chores”.  Not only that, she was raised seeing her Dad pay someone to do those things. The help works, the middle class and the upper middle class rests and plays.

13) Once you marry and have children with a Brazilian, you have to understand some cultural differences when it comes to being a couple. In Brazil, the focus is on the COUPLE. The children come second.  You and your wife are the main unit, not you and your kids. Many American men and women turn their focus to the children after they are born , spending little alone time with their spouse.

Not spending enough alone time with your spouse, not romancing them  and spending too much time on the kids can create resentment. 

Brazil does not have the “Daddy and Daughter” culture. Children spend time with their parents together, not with only one parent. Telling your kids how much you love them, hugging and kissing them all the time and not doing the same with your spouse can create resentment.  Brazilians want the romance to continue, no matter how long you have been married. They want to walk hand in hand, they want some PDA, they want to know they come first.

14) Finally the good stuff: because of the strong family sense and their natural warmth, Brazilian women are very loyal, family oriented, feminine looking and affectionate companions!

Civil Divorce

I feel bad when I see couples fighting in court and dragging all the dirty laundry. I also feel that it should be unnecessary to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in lawyers.  if at one time you two were a team, why can’t you together decide how to divide your assets? Where did the trust and love go? Maybe it wasn’t there to begin with? A civil divorce is so much better for all involved.

Couples who just split everything in the middle are better off and they should be able to decide who gets what when it comes to the nitty gritty without big disputes.  Conversely, child support and visitation should also be decided together.  Child support should be the amount the parent who has the child more often needs for his or her support.  Joint custody is the best, unless one parent is a toxic presence for a child.

Intelligent people who once loved each other should be able to use reason, compassion and friendship to split assets and objects in a fair way where both are happy. Negotiation and compromise are skills intelligent people have. Even though they say people get revengeful upon divorce, it is usually people who had a bad marriage to begin with who end up in bitter fights.  Acrimonious divorces make divorce lawyers rub their hands with pleasure…

Many divorced couples nowadays manage to have a civilized relationship with their exes. When there are children involved, it is best for everyone that the exes, with our without their new spouses/GFs/BFs get along. Divorce is hard enough on the children, and to see their parents hating each other is a huge burden for them. Somehow they feel that they too are a failure, a product of a relationship that became sour.

Although I recognize that in certain circumstances the cause of divorce provoked intense pain in one of the partners (such as infidelity and betrayal, think Christie Brinkley/Cook case), it is better to allow time, the very best medicine, to ruffle the feathers so parents can co-parent with understanding and politeness. Some rare divorced couples have a much lighter relationship separated than when they were married; somehow they just do better as friends than as a romantic relationship. That happens often when the cause of divorce was lack of passion and sexual interest.

For the children, seeing that their parent respects their other parent, it creates more stability in the midst of a normally chaotic situation where their lives have been desmantled.

Some families even manage to socialize with their exes and their new partners during holidays and important events in their childrens’ lives such as weddings and graduations.  I would say that that is the least negative way to be divorced when you have children. For families who achieve that, bravo. Your children will feel the impact of divorce less.

My observation has been that Americans deal with divorce better than Brazilians. Maybe because this country has dealt with divorce longer as well as having a higher divorce rates, or because our Brazilian culture is more emotional and family oriented and unfair to women (men have greater chance of rebuilding their lives after a certain age in Brazil). I have witnessed former couples who never speak to each other, hate each other and absolutely ignore their exes new partners.  I can’t imagine being 12 and having your mom hate your father or vice versa. It is so stressful for a child, teenager and even an adult.

Getting over whatever hurt you, moving on with your life, forgiving your ex, finding joy in other activities or people, giving yourself a chance to fall in love again, all these attitudes will make your life and your children’s life a lot better.

American xenofobia in music?

For some reason, Britopop, with the exception of a few groups like the Beatles (duh) and U2, is more popular in Brazil than the U.S.  Since I am an 80’s girl through and through, I grew up listening to all these Britpop bands that hardly any typical American knows off. New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, The Cult, The Communards, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, Monaco, Brian Ferry, Tears for Fears, Duran Duran….etc. That surprises me since the language is the same! Most likely it is American protectionism at play. The radio stations do not want to advertise foreign bands. So they cram Journey into your head. How often has anyone heard a French or Italian song in an American radio station? I will say never! I remember how in Brazil in the late 60’s and 70’s you could hear romantic Italian songs by Gigliola Cinquetti, Franki Valli, anyone heard it in America?

Satellite Radio has changed that with its diverse stations, but for some reason it is not that popular (I think people have a hard time paying for music in a monthly basis, it seems so superfluous especially in a declining economy).

When I go to Europe or Brazil I love turning on the radio stations. Ah, finally some good music! I confess I am also a fan of cheesy Europop. And here in the US I STRUGGLE to find one station I like.  How come there are no dance radio stations in the whole DC area?