Pursuing Life

Photo from Unsplash Divorce can be a painful, toilsome process to go through for anyone. It gets undoubtedly painful when children are involved. Not only does the couple have to sort through who is going to have what, but they must go through the unpleasant experience of finding out who gets full or partial custody of the children. Divorce is not an easy thing to decide or to do. But often after a divorce, many get remarried. "An estimated 69 percent of women and 78 percent of men enter into another union" (Lauer & Lauer, 2011, page 335). These remarriages often occur about three and a half years following the divorce. But this means there are many different situations that someone who has been divorced can get into. There are five different situations in which remarriage happens: single, divorced or widowed with children, divorced or widowed with custody of children, divorced or widowed without custody of children, or divorced or widowed with custody of children...

Now I haven’t experienced parenting yet, but I think I have learned some skills this last week that I wanted to share. What I am about to share may not be unfamiliar to you, but they may be a little harder to implement because it goes against what comes naturally to you. So, what are the purposes of parenting? Some people say it is to raise responsible, hardworking individuals in society, by changing the world through the teachings and learning in the home, to bring joy, create a support network, to create a sense of belonging, and to give the best experience to your children to help them achieve their greatest potential. Those who are religious may also add to help them become like God, and disciple training. But one person said (sadly I have forgotten who said it), “[Parenting is] to protect and prepare a child to survive and to thrive in the world they will live in.” To be able to help a child survive and thrive takes a lot of work, it takes active parenting. There are a l...

This blog post is specifically set to talk about fathers. The worlds view on fathers is changing drastically, and not in a good way. Fathers are being put down in many places, with people saying that they aren’t needed. I have to say that is simply not true! In this blog I will give you a few things to think about, and I hope that you will spread the good word of fathers to others around you. The things that I will be quoting in my blog today will be coming from an article by Leah East, Debra Jackson, and Louise O’Brien called “Father Absence and Adolescent Development: A Review of the Literature.” This article does a review on multiple different studies on the absence of fathers in the home. I will point out five things that I found interesting and give my thoughts on the research. “…adolescents who experienced father absence had lower self-esteem, engaged in sexual activity at an early age and had lower general achievements compared to adolescents of intact dyadic familie...