Secret to a great marriage

Ok, this is one I believe in, but have a tough time following through on.  Who has time?

All the research points back to 2 basics.   1) Respect   2) Sex

Your spouse wants to be treated like a god or goddess.  Their opinions, decisions, style, body, you name it.  Remember when you were dating and interesting in everything they said, and ready to jump in the sack every 20 minutes for it?  That's why they married you, and now, the lack thereof is why they're irritated with you (and me).   

You can treat someone like a god or goddess and respectfully disagree with them, or ask them to do things not quite so glamorous.  It takes tact and skill (for which I sorely lack).  But, in theory, that's what it takes.

Why do you think all those porn sites are so successful? Think it's all singles on those sites?  Not with membership numbers I've seen.

Have no time or energy with little kids running around, and a job too?  Everyone needs physical touch and affection to feel secure and sane, not just your baby.  It's that physical intimacy that reconnects you with your spouse and allows both of you to forget the piles of work sitting downstairs.  When you get back to it, you'll be better able to focus and prioritize, and complete it faster than before.  

Secret to raising kids

Ok, this is going to be the first of MANY posts on this topic, as it's my life's pursuit.

But I'll start with the big one.

Stay married, or get married.

I read an anonymous question the other day from a women debating divorcing her husband because she wasn't in love anymore.  My initial reaction was ARE YOU DAFT????  HAVE YOU READ THE NEWS AND RESEARCH OVER THE LAST FEW DECADES????  DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR KIDS????

Kid's of divorced parents are more likely to:

1) do poorly in school, and then economically

2) think they caused their parents divorce for their entire lives

3) suffer from depression, low self-esteem

4) struggle with relationships throughout adulthood

5) get divorced themselves

Not to mention divorce is ugly.  No matter how congenial you think it might be, the reality will be 10x as painful and as expensive.  I've read countless accounts and studies, all pretty bad for kids, and pretty bad for the couple too.  Before taking that step, you should too. Educate yourself.  Educate yourself more.  And more. Then go have a glass of wine with your spouse.

There are legitimate reasons for getting divorced.  Abuse and a few others.

You made your bed. You had sex in it.  You had children.  You owe it to your children to give them the best possible environment to grow up in, and the starting place for that is having 2 parents.

Secret to saving lives

Here's a no-brainer.  

Vote.

Vote for candidates that are expressly against pretty much all war.  

If you're reading this blog, I'm guessing you're against the Iraq war.  Frankly, if you are breathing, you're probably against the Iraq war. Maybe you were unsure in the beginning, but now its clear that war wasn't the answer here. The reality is that it's almost never the answer.  It doesn't work.  War is NOT the Answer

If you support candidates that tend towards war, you are supporting the murder of people from our country and others. Those people are someone's child, someone's sibling, and in many cases, someone's Mommy or Daddy.  The people killed by your vote will include soldiers and definitely some civilians.  You will be voting for children to be killed, and animals too.  That is the reality of war.

If there is a genocide, should America try to stop it?  Yes.  That's pretty much the other purpose that matters.  Was there a genocide in Iraq?  Iran?  Nope.  Thanks for all the murder folks.  Please donate to the orphanages you forced into creation.

Secret to hiring and retaining employees

Give your employees a HUGE amount of flexibility!  In the hours they work, in how they approach the job, in any area realistic (and even some that don't seem so at first blush). Studies show that there are really 3 reasons people chose a job, and keep a job:  Fit with their DESIRED lifestyle, relationship with their boss, and compensation (probably in that order).

1)  Flexibility matters more than any other factor to parents, and mothers in particular.  Who's taking those kids to the doctor, school, or dealing with parenting issues? You want committed employees?  Let them take care of their family without guilt, and they will reward you 10 fold. Most companies have pretty poor sick leave or flex time policies that are, frankly, discriminatory to women who perform the lion's share of child-rearing. Why do women earn less than 80 cents on the dollar for equal work?  Discrimination for taking care of family business.  It's the companies that really loose out though in the costs of employee turnover, endless recruiting and retraining, and so on.  Why is Europe trampling the US lately in competitiveness?  Family friendly policies, long term committed employees, fewer costs in the long run.

2) Relationship with your employees.  Trust me, if people don't like or respect the powers that be, they're not going to give their best. Managers that are empowering and POSITIVE to work for, are especially hard to resign from.  Have a lot of employee's resign under your tenure?  It's the way you treat them. Give them meaningful work, lots of respect, support, and flexibility, and spend your time improving your business, not continually recruiting new staff.

3) Money.  It matters a whole bunch in hiring, but not as much after that IF you're a good manager.  That's why we have millions in the US working for peanuts in teaching and a plethora of other careers.  They could certainly make more money, but intrinsic motivation and respect pays out more in the long run.

Find yourself wondering why this matters in Saving the World?  It's all about parenting to me. Most parents have to work to put food on the table.  In the hierarchy of needs, if you can enable them to be happier while doing it, they can focus on raising their kids, give a little free time to important causes, and not waste time in the endless pursuit of more money and things.

Where are the Secrets to saving the world?

Well, most are out there, if you can find them.  They're just buried under the rest of the sensational news about Tiger attacks and Jamie Spear's pregnancy.  To me saving the world means protecting the innocent on our planet, saving my marriage, and creating the best possible environment for my kids to grow and prosper, in big ways and small.

The reality is we (YOU and ME), are in the process of destroying the very things we value with our consumption, our behavior, and our everyday decisions.  We are pressured by our parents, our friends, and even our own dreams of a large house with a white picket fence in a perfect neighborhood.  

You only have to look at the most popular web searches, news articles, magazines, food we eat, and hot consumer items, and then trace back the roots, the politics, and the implications to see what's wrong.  With this blog, I'll look for the solutions, big and small, to a smattering of the problems we can address in our own little worlds.  

While I'd love to fix genocide, war, famine, and a host of other world problems, let's just say they are beyond my scope today.  However, the little decisions we make here in suburbia can help.  Choosing a president that advocates peace over war,  buying products made without animal testing, or lead testing, choosing to recycle instead of discarding, choosing to be kind, instead of brutally honest.  All have their place in the secrets to saving the world.

Grammar be Damned; it's the SECRET that matters

Welcome to the inaugural post of Mama's Secrets!

Learn unique ways to improve your life, your kids, your parenting, and your planet with a plethora of secrets that politicians, businesses and your peers having been hiding. (frequently out of ignorance!!)  The truth is out there, we aim to find it and publish it!

If you have a secret that matters, SHARE (but nothing that would get anyone legitimately sued or arrested please).