IT'S ONLY ROCK "N" ROLL - 30 YEARS MARRIED TO A ROLLING STONE by JO WOOD : NMNK BOOK REVIEW

It's Only Rock "N" Roll
30 Years Married To A Rolling Stone
by Jo Wood (wife of Ron Wood)  C 2013
!t books - an imprint of HarperCollingsPublishers

Book Review By Sister at NEVER MARRIED NO KIDS - AN INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY

It's not easy to write a memoir and write it so every chapter advances your story.  Jo Wood did that, and she had a hell of a lot of life to select scenes from.  No doubt I was attracted to this book because Jo Wood is not just an ordinary woman in a hellish, dysfunctional marriage, but because women like her keep men like Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood happy for a long long time, that is until a life long alcoholic and drug user who has NEVER GROWN UP, decides he has to womanize before he dies, and dumps his no longer co-dependent wife!

I used to study at a coffee house that was owned by members of AA and frequented by members of AA (and other 12 step groups attempting to resist addiction.)  Several times I met men who were flirtatious and generally attractive to me but they never seemed to follow through.  Perplexed, I brought this subject up to others there, and I learned well one thing:

A person who lives their life for years on substances, be that drugs or alcohol, who basically AVOIDS life by being high, partying a lot, etc, DOES NOT GROW, DOES NOT MATURE, and so, when they finally join a 12 Step Program and get off their substance, they are the age they were when they started avoiding life... Jo was a hard partier and addict herself, which was attractive to Ron, but it was she who had to be a bit more sensible because she was the one having children, raising them, and keeping some sanity in her own and their lives.

Therefor, when they met he was about her age (20) as a human and 30 years later, she had matured to be maybe 30 something, while he was still 20 something and having affairs with 20 year olds.  That's my explanation.

Now, if Ron Wood were NOT a Rolling Stone, if there were not drugs, travel, excitement, fame, money (to be earned and invested unwisely and lost), would Jo have stuck in there and had three children with him?  My guess is that there are a lot of more ordinary people who are in these hellish marriages, with and without children, in which people met as partiers or drug addicts and remained so.

Jo portrays Ron as selfish, self-centered,  capable of verbal abuse and unable to imagine how he hurts others, and clearly she made a lot of excuses for him and did a lot of compensating.  Nearing 50 she dared to move her organic lifestyle into a product line, and she used the book to promote that a bit.

She stays clear of what their financial settlement was, though I'm sure most readers would like to know what she got (earned) after 30 years of loyalty and faithfulness.

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Speaking of drug and alcohol use and abuse,  there are people who can use without becoming addicts. There are people who can keep it to 2 drinks or 20, people who can keep it to weekends, people who never drive themselves when they are using.  Still, when you choose to be out of control regularly, even if scheduled, or at home, you may be self treating for a emotional or mental issue.

People are often wondering so I will tell you that I'm all for MEDICAL MJ and have been for years, ever since a professor at my college talked about how it would have saved her father's eyesight, and since I've met ovarian cancer survivors who used it and ate and didn't waste away.  I think alcohol may be worse than MJ.  However, I don't use MJ or any other illegal drug and drink very little and then usually with a meal, like dinner out, or a special occasion like a birthday.  So it is really hard for me to relate to drug addicts.

OLD MOVIE SCENE IN "WHEN HARRY MET SALLY" REMINDS ME - SOME PEOPLE WOULD RATHER BE DIVORCED SO THEY CAN SAY THEY HAVE BEEN MARRIED

Is that scene OUTDATED?

Watching this old movie, I was reminded of women I once knew who definitely felt that way.  (They are all married now though I have no idea how happily.)

Maybe this is now a CONSERVATIVE or BACKWARD attitude, that it is so NORMAL to at least TRY MARRIAGE, that it would be better to commit and then fail...It's like people are getting points (with parents? friends? employers? God?) for trying and LEARNING.

But don't people who commit to relationships that don't become legal marriage and fail also LEARNING ABOUT HAVING A RELATIONSHIP?

And what about LEARNING from other people's relationships, like how NOT to have one?

Recently on a free news stand I saw a publication that is called DIVORCE, i.e. Divorce magazine.  It was full of ads for professions such as forensic accountants (who look for where the marital partner hid money) and of course lots of divorce attorneys who promise to "fight" for you.

All of which I will be very happy to SKIP.

The rush to marriage because it's something "everyone" is doing or does, or because it's time (i.e. 26 years old or so), without really knowing the other person well, is just stupid.
So maybe people expect points for stupidity?

CAMERON DIAZ GETS MARRIED AT 42 and I REALLY DO HOPE SHE and HE WILL BE HAPPY!

Actress CAMERON DIAZ got married the other day, at her home, with a good tent to hide the proceedings and keep them private.  The photographers and news people had been watching her house for some time and saw the catering and floral deliveries, figured it out, and were there.

Now Cameron has pretty much been a spokesperson for the NMNK lifestyle, and be it that she changed her mind, fell in love with a soul mate, decided to give marriage a try (especially as that at 42 she has had a long experience of NMNK and might be at that point where having a baby could take forever), whatever, I REALLY DO HOPE THAT THE HAPPY COUPLE WILL BE HAPPY.

Just because I'm not much interested in marriage myself doesn't mean that I'm UNHAPPY when other people get married.

It's just that most of my friends who got married were ultimately not happy or they would not have gotten divorced.  I have a couple friends who have been married twice and are divorced twice and now have partners that they refuse to marry, which is another story.  In one case the children were the ones horribly effected.  In another case there are no children to be effected.  I also have lost contact with friends who married, would never divorced for religious reasons, have a lot of children, and who gave up on ME, not the other way around.

I'm not going to make any PREDICTIONS about this marriage of Cameron's.  I'd like to think that because she is more mature and has had many relationships that she has the experience and wisdom to know what she is doing.  I know nothing about her husband at all,

THE SINGLE MOTHER WHO HELPED REINFORCE MY VOW TO REMAIN NK

My New Year began with the professional cleaning of a carpet, the removal of a small sofa that had in the last few months popped a spring and broken a leg, and the purchase of another sofa from a single mother across the way who was moving about thirty miles away to more affordable housing, she said with the help of her friends.

I never asked her how it was that she got stranded by the child's father, but perhaps I didn't need to know and she didn't need to tell the all too typical story.  Her daughter is, I feel lucky, as I think the fatherless family unit is possibly even worse for sons.  Her daughter is also very beautiful and intelligent beyond her years but perhaps does not yet have a sense that she is living in poverty.  She's not in school yet.  She is generally a happy child but one who knows how to throw a tantrum and disobey to get her way.  I expect that in a couple years some child psychologist will chime in an opinion but maybe this single mother is simply out of control of her child.

In a previous post I pretty much ranted my opinion that unless you have lots of family support and money in the bank, no woman should have one or more children on her own.  I said that there were lots of frantic women in my neighborhood who had the single mom lifestyle and from what I witnessed it was a an often desperate lifestyle.

So this situation was an example.

First I and my dog went to look at the sofa.  I asked her to measure it but she never had the time. 

I decided it was worth it to buy it for the price, even if it turns out to be a temporary solution. She said that her friends who were helping her move would be glad to bring it over.  I told her I was having the carpets cleaned and the old sofa removed before then.

The day before the move she texted me that she needed to fax important papers.  It was New Years Day and I have no home fax and most places were closed.  She added that she had no money to fax so it had to be someone's personal fax.  I was not about to get on the phone to ask around for her.  What had she left to the last minute like this?  The new lease to the landlord and paperwork for her child's school.  Ah well, the texting went on and on, and I got it SHE HAD NO MONEY TO FAX EVEN IF SHE FOUND A PLACE THAT WAS OPEN.  I found a place that was open on New Years Day and she said she had no bus fare to get there.  I knew that on Christmas, in order to get to a friend's place where she was going to hang out for the holiday she had asked the bus driver for a free ride for herself and her daughter.  He said yes.  She had been begging free bus rides a lot.

I was finding all this anxiety producing.  I decided to give her $10 towards the sofa and took it and a plate of food over to her apartment.  There I found a lot of Christmas gifts torn open that her friends had bought from Santa for her daughter.  She said she was just thinking she was hungry.  Well, I suspect there was no food in the place.  She also remarked that it was cold.  It was.  No heat.  I wondered if she really needed to fax or had just managed to coax money out of me.  I decided I was not going to offer to babysit for free while she took buses to the fax place.

The place was reasonably clean maybe because it was so bare.

I asked her if she maybe needed a twin bed, as I had a twin bed frame I was giving away.  She said her daughter had her own room (i.e THE bedroom) and that she herself sometimes slept on the sofa she was selling me.  It was clear she had been unable to sell it, would have no room for it in the next place, and that she was happy to have some money in hand.  Maybe the money to pay her friends.

The next day her friends showed up in a vehicle that looked like it was held together with spackle and proceeded to tie a box springs and two mattresses onto the roof.  It turned out they were not friends but for hire.  She was so broke she hit me up for boxes and plastic bags.  I gave her the money for the sofa and an extra $5 to tip them for bringing her sofa across the street to my place.  (Apparently she didn't and kept the money, as they posed around my door awaiting tip money.)  I realized that she had not wanted the bed frame because her daughter slept on a mattress on the floor and these mattresses and box springs were so mismatched and filthy, I had to wonder if she hadn't pulled them into her place when someone else on the street threw them out.

So, no money for bus fare, no money to buy gifts for her daughter herself, no gift for the daughter from the "father", no money to heat the place, and food insecurity.

To her credit she has been doing an Internship and hoping for a new job and I certainly hope that in her new town this is possible and exactly what happens for her in the New Year.

IS SEX ONLY FOR THE RICH? and CELIBACY ISN'T THE SAME AS SEXUAL ABSTINENCE

WASHINGTON POST - CELIBATE IS NOT NECESSARILY ABSTRACT CONCEPT

WASHINGTON POST - Catherine Rampell - SEX ONLY FOR THE RICH?

EXCERPT:

Our country apparently doesn’t want low-income Americans to have free access to birth control, either by compelling all insurance plans to offer it or by adequately funding public reproductive health programs. In many schools — predominantly located in low-income, high-teen-pregnancy areas — we don’t even teach kids how contraception works. We also don’t want them to have easy access to abortions when they inevitably get pregnant because they’re not using birth control, with states such as Texas and Mississippi trying to shutter their few remaining abortion clinics.

Then we don’t help them very much after they birth those unplanned kids, instead publicly chastising irresponsible single mothers for having babies they can’t afford and offering little assistance in the form of child care, education or cash. Dumping unwanted children onto the child welfare system isn’t exactly celebrated, either...

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SISTER HERE:

I guess it depends where you live, but where I live there are plenty of free and low cost opportunities for contraception as well as abortion.  And while I certainly think schools should be teaching more about sex than when I was a girl and it was limited to film and discussion lead by a mother/nurse about having periods and the mysterious unification of egg and sperm, I STILL THINK IT IS UP TO PARENTS TO EDUCATE THEIR CHILDREN IN NOT ONLY THE FACTS OF LIFE, but also the ethics and morals that they believe in.  Sure the children will rebel, but if you teach children about personal and social responsibility, there's a chance they will THINK before they act.

CHILDREN OUT OF WEDLOCK THE NEW NORMAL? THAT'S TERRIBLE!

I recently read two articles, one at NPR, which said the percentage of black children born out of wedlock in 2013 was 70%.  Another in The Atlantic, attempted to explain.  Written by Ta-Nehisi Coastes, a man, it was called "Understanding Out of Wedlock Births in Black America."  (Please understand that white children are also being born out of wedlock in unprecedented numbers and what I have to say here is not focused on just black people.)

THE ATLANTIC ARCHIVE

I carefully read the language of this second article, and the first issue I had with it was the apology that black women are CHOOSING NOT TO MARRY.  The Black women I've known through the years were not being asked to marry even when they got pregnant.  If a relationship was not a committed one with the potential to become marriage before the pregnancy occurred, then forget this idea of choice completely.  (And yes I know one white woman who told everyone that her sperm donor had asked her to marry him but that she had decided it wasn't a relationship to make a life out of and had said no.  It was a lie.  It turned out he was married.)

What the article should have said is WOMEN ARE CHOOSING TO HAVE SEX WITHOUT PROPER CONTRACEPTION or are unwilling to use it, or are unwilling to have abortions or have a baby and put it up for adoption IN RECORD NUMBERS.  It may now be a rite of passage into adulthood that a woman gets pregnant and becomes a single mom, which is often a struggling, stressed out, mom who can't give her children the things they need and is dependent on Social Services.

I know contraception is not perfect, in particular because people are not perfect. 

Believe it or not, I've always been Pro-Choice, but I couldn't tell someone they have to have an abortion. What worries me is that so many women are living life not by CHOOSING but by NOT CHOOSING.  Everything in life "just happens" to them, or is their fate, or is God's will.

I'm also willing to go anthropologist on this and say that maybe black American culture is basically matriarchal and there isn't much expected of men in the first place, that it's a culture where the women do the child begetting and birthing and raising without the idea that a man should be involved too.  But women, what has happened to your desire to, if you really want children, date with the idea that finding a husband first?  I'm sorry but some of you just lack self esteem and are letting men off easy as they betray you.  You also have more options for contraception than ever before in the history of this planet, but don't use it.  And if you're so religious that you don't believe in contraception or abortion, what are you doing having sex without being married first then?

When a woman has, through luck, inheritance, or (most often) hard and long work, becoming educated, establishing a career, and is making very good money, and she wants to have a child on her own, if she has several persons in her life committed to helping her parent, especially if she is getting older and may soon no longer be fertile, that is a CHOOSING.  There is maturity involved and rationality and I understand it.  Some of our famous actresses, such as say Sandra Bullock, who have millions in the bank, have adopted children because they are in the position to have a trust fund in place for their child so that if they die the child will still be supported.  That's not most people.  Elton John and his partner having children using a surrogate are not most people.  They are famous and rich.  They are not to be imitated.

Going out, partying, sleeping with whomever (maybe because you think a man is owed sex in exchange for taking you out), remaining unqualified to make decent money, being poor and without resources, and just going ahead with having a baby because you say "Well I want one"  or "Everyone else is doing it" is just not good enough.

How do I know?

Well, I meet these single mothers who regard men as not much more than sperm donors  (Why aren't men protesting?) and who are raising children with the help of their mothers (who really ought to be retiring to something other than childcare after having done their own child-raising bit) everywhere.  They are in my neighborhood working, rushing back and forth to drop their child off here, there, and everywhere, but especially Day Care, looking like they are about to drop, aged ten years in five.  Some of them are bitter.  Most of them are in ongoing arguments with the sperm donor daddy, begging him to spend some time with their child.  Children are supposed to have more than one role model in their lives, and someone admirable.

Maybe another person will come into these women's lives, love them truly - and their child, provide financial support, become a real husband or partner and a real co-parent, but when the rates of no dad births go all the way up to 70% tell me, where are the Good Guys?  Or are you just making a life with a man who is not the father to your child but the father to some other women's child?  I've even met (in passing) two men who had five children each, each child with a different woman. What a tangled web of a family tree and relationships that is! (One by the way was an ex gang member of Hispanic roots.  The other Black.  They were bragging.)

I do think it is better to be NM than in a bad marriage.  But I'm NMNK.  Through my life I've made countless CHOICES to not get pregnant including celibacy, not continuing relationships that weren't going well, and using contraception.  No contraception isn't perfect.  I've met women who got pregnant using just about every contraception there is, even an IUD.  One woman even claimed a third pregnancy after having her tubes tied. I've met married women who didn't want another child who got pregnant anyway.  Still, statistics like these are not all about broken rubbers, forgotten pills, and misplaced diaphragms.  These stats are much higher than contraceptive failure rates. Some women can even have a once in three year implant that will prevent pregnancy but if you read the ads it's mentioned THIS DOES NOT PREVENT STD's.

What does? 

Using rubbers so you don't get STD's is a must unless you are PLANNING TO HAVE A BABY!  What does using rubbers entail, besides being able to afford them?  A MAN WHO USES THEM!

When a woman has a child before she is "ready" and that means relationship-wise and financially too, she puts her own future in jeopardy.

OFF THE SOAP BOX NOW!

THINK!

Sister

YOU KNOW YOU'RE NMNK WHEN... (16 INDICATIONS THAT IT'S TIME TO COME OUT OF THE NMNK CLOSET!)

1) People say to you "Isn't it about TIME you got married."  (Getting married because you've reached a certain age, making whoever you're dating into Mr. or Ms. "Right" because it's "time" and "settling" is to me, a ticket to Divorce and Single Parenthood.)

2) You work overtime while your co-workers with children get to go home to take them here, there, and everywhere, like to soccer practice and the Drive-Through for dinner.  (They assume you will "understand" and "won't mind" and so does your boss, but oh you do!  Being used at work like this is worse than when it's your family!)  Worse, some employers GIVE RAISES to those who have children, thinking "that man/single mother now has to support a family." Even though that person may be LESS PRODUCTIVE. 

3) You are also tapped to be the BABYSITTER or CAREGIVER for exhausted or broke friends and relatives who assume that your life is not jam packed with activities that are worthwhile.  They sometimes try to sell it as "bonding" or getting to know the child/children better.  They may even put guilt upon you as an aunt or uncle of the child if you are not eager to accommodate them being fearful that it will become a habit with them to dump their children on you.  These people often want free or discounted services.  Don't they know that you can like or not like someone else's child, love or not love someone else's child, but that THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD CHILDREN COUNTING ON OTHERS TO DO THEIR WORK FOR THEM or SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD CHILDREN THEY CANNOT AFFORD as in afford professional childcare?  Worse, some of them think that if you spend time with their children, YOU WILL WANT SOME OF YOUR OWN or that if you can't have children you want, that theirs will make that up to you!

4) Without your pre-knowledge or permission, you find yourself being "set up" for dates and meetings with people your friends or relatives think of as "marriageable" or "eligible" because they think the real reason you are unmarried is that you keep meeting people who have "fear of commitment" or who are just no good.

(I suffered the humiliation of going to a Thanksgiving dinner, only to find out it was a set up with a man looking for a wife.  He was not for me and I heard my cousin actually tell him I had a "fear of commitment!" as if to apologize for me and my lack of interest.)

5)  Some people think you have a"fear of commitment."  Though you may be committed to your family, doing elder care or the care of disabled siblings, committed to your education or career, or committed to your volunteer work or some other activity, the lie they tell themselves is that you don't just fear commitment with someone all wrong for you but commitment in general.  (One male friend of mine, the only son of two sick parents, put on hold dating and marriage for years, working full time and then coming home to care for them, until they died.  Would you say he "lacked commitment?")

6) Your friends who married and have children dump you because they prefer to socialize with other married with children couples.   At best they may invite you to a party or give you a call or send a card once in a while, but it's clear they don't relate to you any more.  (More than once I've had the experience of being invited to showers and weddings, and the last I hear from someone is the thank-you note.)  Basically they no longer value or work at being friends with you.  Sometimes they will continue to be friends with you until their children become out of control teenagers; this they say you just don't "understand" because you "never gave birth."

7) Some people think you are "immature" that you have not married and had children.  While becoming a duo with someone else probably is the best first step to having children and considered a Passage of Life, and maybe most people (still) do, maturity is not dependent on being a spouse or reproducing yourself.  Just look at all those teenager parents!  Some stay-at-home parents, in particular, are very immature.  Being isolated, removed from the world, and depending on someone else to develop a career and go out and bring home the bacon so you can fry it up in a pan, is a great way to become isolated and STUCK!  To mature you have to have a lot of life experiences, I think including supporting yourself for at least a while before you let someone else support you.

8) Your high school friend who has had four children now says "I had your share."  (Guess what!  I think anyone who can AFFORD more than two children, who really wants them, and can love them, respect them, and do right by them, can have more than two children!  This is not yet China with a one child policy that includes forced abortions.  I even think that there are some people who can do OK as single parents, like some of the actresses who have adopted and have a few million in the bank!  Still, most people today cannot afford a lot of children. )

9) Some people who hear you have never married or had children think "there has to be something wrong with her/him."  This has happened to me more than once but I did meet one older man who told me that not bringing along children to support could be a plus to some men who have already raised families or cannot afford to support more children.  Some people don't get it that when you hear someone is thinking of trying to work full time and support a child on their own, or that when you hear someone had children and then deserted them, that there HAS TO BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM like they have really underestimated their own ability to cope! 

10) You're suspected of being gay (and repressed) because you never talk about dating, having sex, or being involved with anyone.  Why not?  Besides being private, you're sick of some people always assuming that you're either terribly alone and lonely without a partner or that eventually you will "find someone" and hate it when they make TOO BIG A DEAL of someone you're probably not going to marry.  Besides, how much about your private life should you even be talking about at work or with people who you are friendly with but who are not friends?  You may not want to talk about dating, having sex, or being involved with someone because you just are not doing any of those things right now.

11) You're suspected of being a womanizer or player and maybe you are, but again, other people are looking for an excuse for why you are not married and childless that you are not looking for.  How many womanizers or players have no children?  I think few!  For men, traditionally, being thought of this way is more of a plus than it is for women.  It's been assumed that a sexually active man is at least ... normal.

12) When you travel or go on vacation, you find yourself paying a penalty for traveling alone.  People who share rooms get discounts as if they don't use twice as much water or make twice as much a mess or as if there aren't two beds in the room already!

13) When you go shopping for groceries, because you are buying food for one, you never seem to get the prize for spending a few hundred dollars a month, whatever it is, "gas points" or whatever.  Oddly the same stores are marketing "personal" sized pizzas, water melons, and other products.  (You really have to be careful because the price for these food items may be higher than if you bought in bulk.)

14)  Some people think that your beloved pet is your "child substitute."  (I hate to say it, but if you baby talk to your dog like I do they will be really sure of this!)

15) Jealous married people don't get it that being self supporting does not necessary mean that  you are "totally free" to "just go anywhere you want" as if having a spouse who doesn't want to or can't move is the only possible reason someone doesn't transfer all around for career or travel for work.  (Some of them think that being NMNK means you will be more desirable to employers but just the opposite is true.  Some employers like employees who live hand to mouth and have children to feed so they can enslave them and don't trust the more "independent" NMNK!)

16) You start telling people you are NEVER MARRIED NO KIDS.  "I'm NMNK!" you declare  and if you can't do so with pride, at least don't say it with shame.  There are so many ways to be NMNK.  As I say it can be personal choice (my case) or it can be fate, but whatever the reason, make the most of your life!


C 2014 NMNK - An Intentional Community/Sister  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

MY SHITTY GODMOTHER'S ONLY CLAIM TO FAME IS MOTHERHOOD

Recently someone reminded me of my GODMOTHER, who was once overheard talking against me.  She said "She's the kind of person who doesn't even like holding babies!"

I'm not sure how this got started as I haven't even lived near my Godmother for the majority of my life for her to see me or not see me holding babies but as a child, no I was not eager to hold other people's babies.  They seemed heavy, they seemed wiggly, and I was probably feeling as though  I might accidently drop the baby and be in big trouble.  After all I was still a child.   (Why do people thrust their babies at others to hold anyway?  Probably they feel they need a BREAK!)

She never said anything like this to MY FACE and I suppose I should call her on it, though what difference would it make?   She's now quite old.  She got fired as my GODMOTHER long ago; for years I was conned by her into believing that everything she said was the truth and learned that she has done a lot of PR in her time, and probably what was really behind her comment is her need to promote herself as SUPERMOM.  In case you are wondering, she never fulfilled the role of a GODMOTHER in my life.  She never was concerned for my spirituality and she didn't become a substitute mom for me when mine died.

For sadly, my GODMOTHER never had a chance to be anything else in this life but a wife and mother.  She never had any education past high school.  She never fully supported herself or worked a full time job.  She got pregnant before she got married but the marriage worked.  Being the mother of TWO is her claim to fame because they did turn out well, as have her grandchildren. I have no idea if she wanted more children.  I've always assumed that she only had two because that was the NUMBER GOD GAVE HER (along with some sort of preventive medical condition) or because at least she and her husband were smart enough to know that was all they could afford.  The doing well part is because they could afford college for their sons who could afford college for their children.

But then, as her children grew up, my GODMOTHER was the go to person for many of my relatives when they needed free babysitting services.  This was something my own mother actually didn't want.  I was not left at my GODMOTHER'S house to roam in a troop of village children.  Though we showed up to visit and attended many family events my same GODMOTHER calls this "We never really got to know you."

I suspect my GODMOTHER thinks there are all sorts of things I personally and my parents ought to be GUILTY about!

As a teenager I baby sat my fair share of children and some were still in diapers.  Most were not.  Most were OK kids, a couple were horrid, and the parents never paid anything close to a minimum wage.  That tells you just how valued mothering and child care was.  The three kids I babysat the most were really good kids, well behaved, respectful, sometimes fun. 

None of the children I babysat made me think "Wow! Someday I'll have my own!"  I suspect that my GODMOTHER thinks I am ABNORMAL because I'm NMNK...  And sadly people like me make for being an easy target for people like her.

C 2014 Never Married No Kids - BlogSpot

HAPPILY DINING ALONE : OVERHEARING THE UNHAPPY DATERS : SISTER SPEAKS

Once in a while I enjoy taking myself out to a restaurant and dining alone.  So often I'm seated near a group of women who spend their entire meal bitching about dating and men that ruin the meals of everyone in hearing distance!

I was so provoked to say a few things to these young women about men and dating that they might not want to hear.  I said nothing but left as soon as I finished my meal!

They were unhappy with dating.  Why do it?  No one HAS to date!  If it's to meet someone to marry, perhaps they should ask their parents, older sisters, or someone that they respect to ARRANGE their marriages!

They were unhappy with men.  It could be the men they are meeting and not all men on this earth, but OK, let's say all men are basically defective.  Then try women.

Men had treated them all badly in some way.  That's terrible but has it turned any of them into feminists?  Hopefully they all know that when a person treats another person without respect it's time to end the relationship before it turns into SINGLE MOTHERHOOD with NO SUPPORT!

I wanted to know:

If they ever do the asking out and if so do they make the plan and pay?

If any one of them has discovered a pattern such as being dumped or being the dumped, or being the one who asks the other person out and being the one who leaves the relationship.

SUMMER IS HERE.  DON'T RUIN YOUR SUMMER OVER DATING!  Get out there, have fun, make friends, and maybe you'll also have a romance.  No one will come knocking on your door uninvited!

C 2014