Cycle-ogy

I taught my first class on fertility awareness/family planning a couple of weeks ago. It went well considering... The class featured a background and explanation of using symptothermal approaches to monitor fertility and achieve or postpone pregnancy. In essence a woman looks for cervical fluid and takes her temperature every morning to predict and confirm ovulation and the possibility of pregnancy. Our memorable equation was egg + sperm + cervical fluid = baby.

We had a diverse crowd of married couples who were parents and prospective parents to attend the event. The men were suprisingly vocal in their family planning wants and don't wants. My husband shocked everybody by the candid way he spoke about our "relational intimacy."

The girlfriend who asked me to do the class thinks it would be a hit at local churches. I think I'll look into this possibility in the coming weeks. For those who are curious, contact me and get a head start of informing yourself by reading Love and Fertility by Mercedes Arzu Wilson.

Daddy Bank Roll

If you read http://adifferenceofopinion.blogspot.com/ A Difference of Opinion you know that I recently challenged single women to be celibate and married women to expect more from their husbands; specifically, I asked them to expect him to be able to support his household without her income. To that challenge I received the typical response; "Are you crazy?"

The answer is yes, I'm just crazy enough to believe that the role of a man hasn't changed just because some cultures, including American, have. Somebody name me the benefits of wives taking on the responsibility for financially supporting the household. What this has done is given men less weight to carry. They have more freedom to do, well anything, while women are more burdened down than before the Revolution.

I'm told that I just don't know the struggle of the single life. How could I, haven been married for nearly six years and I'm only 30. I wonder though, are women looking for advice on how to live a single life, or for how to ditch it for a double one of the married kind. I agree with Dawn Eden that hardest thing to do when you've been single for longer than you want

Smart Love

A recent Associated Press article published by Yahoo declared that U.S. divorce rates are on the decline. Did anyone notice? Take a quick stab at the perceived reasons... (whistling......). If you guessed any of the following, kudos.

1. More people live together without marrying (10 times more likely now than in 1960)


2. Less people marry today (down 30% since 1975)


3. People wait longer to marry

Marriage scholars quoted in the article alerted us to another disparity. It's called the marriage divide. It seems that a couple's education and wealth play a role in whether couples will stay together. "The rate of breakups within 10 years of marriage dropped by one-third in college educated women while remaining stable among less educated women." The article goes further to say that couples who are staying together expect a less traditional wife role and that the wife working is the "great stabilizer" in the marriage.

I don't know whether to cheer or yell. My critical side is saying that men are too comfortable not being expected to be the sole provider in the family.

I remember gushing to a girlfriend in the second week after I married that being at home and not worrying about the bills "felt like what I was meant to do all my life."

Today I'm less romantic about the stay at home lifestyle. I realize that it's not fun to be home all day because nobody else is there with you. Once you have kids you want to do anything but be home all day with them (they'd tear up the house) if you didn't get out of there.

I'm happy that some things in marriages today are working, but we are far from being clear from danger. Men could use the pressure of being depended on. And women will have to learn domestic skills if children are going to realize their potential. As the article proclaimed, despite the positive trend in marriage outcomes, children are still getting a raw deal.