DEEP INSULTS BECAUSE I'M NOT A MOTHER

I happened again.  I was told that I had no right to judge, that I didn't know a certain family member's child "like we do," and so on, and that basically I have no right to an opinion because I am not myself a mother. I was also mocked about how well I take care of my dog.  Actually, after a few months of tolerance in which I pretended not to hear and chose to blame immaturity, months in which I had sympathized and empathized and been supportive, I was beginning to feel angry myself.

Let me explain this deep insult, from a so called feminist yet.  We real feminists know that it does not take giving birth or having a personal child, or being a mother, to know when we are dealing with a spoiled brat.

Let's call the spoiled brat, who I was previously told is a chronic liar and narcissist and drama queen and so on, "Melanie."  Melanie is someone I had not seen since she was in diapers, that is true.  In fact, her single mother (no father in the child's life ever, but a man who not only hid out rather than pay child support but apparently has fathered EIGHT children at this point, a real inseminator!) was acting so weird towards me back in the day that I decided I WOULD NOT SEE THEM AGAIN UNTIL THIS CHILD WAS A LEGAL ADULT.  By weird I mean that this single mother took my interest in her child to be jealousy that she had her and I had none.  Needless to say I was not jealous of her.  I tried to respect that fact that she had not had an abortion and felt confident that she could do it all alone.

Now the child is an adult of 18, I have met her, I have spent time with them, I was warned she was screwed up, and I sadly got a triple dose of her obnoxious behavior, which I'm not supposed to react to or comment on.

Upon meeting me she did a news flash.  "I don't believe in bras or marriage," she said.
I thought "That's interesting."  Later I realized she had said this because she thought that would put her in good with me.  Actually I have always worn bras, though not always the most concealing ones.  Not all women need them all the time. But damn if this young woman went and eloped soon after, came back home and expected her mother to continue to support her financially.  She argued that it was OK if she and her husband slept together in their house when they were just dating, why not now?  Wasn't mom and other family members supposed to keep them in medical insurance, the latest laptops and cell phones, continue to pay for their college tuition, world travel,  vegetarian foods, and so on - so they could stay in school? Neither she or her young husband thought marriage meant you go live together elsewhere - get your own place - land in the same bed every night together - and afford it on your own!

This was just the beginning of her lies to me - someone new in her life as an adult - distantly related - which added on to the lies - whole plots of them - that she told her mother and other relations.

For the next few months the entire family and household was in an uproar as one thing led to another.  If perhaps we might think "OK, she is NOT your child, so there should be a boundary there, well, I cared, I tried to stay out of it, I tried to be the rational voice, and I tried to be realistic. Sure her single mother was going to go through empty nest syndrome.  Sure her single mother had sometimes worked two jobs to keep her in a private school, send her to special activity summer camps.  She also sent her to stay elsewhere when she had a man over.  Didn't she deserve one night a week just for herself, to relax, have sex, etc? She also was career oriented and could be exhausted or seem to be in her own space.  Was she actually neglectful?  Not really.

 When had the chronic lying and other behaviors begun and WHY?

I was told "When she hit puberty and her father's genes ignited!"

I think rather that it was about this "birds and the bees" point in her own reproductive life that she really began to realize that she was illegitimate and had no father in her life at all.  Never mind if a loving grandpa tried to be "dad."

Let's say we understand her reasons why.  Still chronic lying is NOT OK. It is at this level a symptom of mental illness or she has been and is MANIPULATING EVERYONE.  She does argument, she does emotional blackmail, she does verbal abuse, she blocks conversations.  But it is also a sign that a child that needed to be raised not to lie.  This child needed to be corrected.  If religious school was only to be rebelled against, then there is Godless psychotherapy. Clearly my arrival had nothing to do with YEARS of lies.  Of other people who should know better raising her to allow her to lie to them, to go without responsibility into adulthood, and without any consequences or punishment.

So, I was stunned to hear that now I am officially not involved, after being asked to talk to her, asked to research, asked to be involved.

I am glad I never had a child.  If I had a child though, I know for sure that mine would not be a spoiled brat!

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THE WISDOM OF MARRYING TOO YOUNG?

Soon after I read about how Millennial are delaying marriage until they have no debt, I heard about a distant family member who got married, age 18, to her boyfriend of less than one year, age 20, kept it a secret, and then continued to live with mom and dad.  All hell has broken loose since. First of all, the family feels deceived as this secret is based in economics: as two college students they cannot afford to live independently, not even with house mates, due to the extreme cost of living.


Quizzed further, the two of them seem to be extremely innocent of the fact that now neither of them can be covered on their parent's health insurance. So they both got kicked out of their respective houses because they are now considered liars and manipulators.


I've tried to be the voice of reason and to empathized and understand what would motivate two brilliant college students to do such a thing.  Are they truly devious, selfish, or only out to get what they want from others?


Well, I reasoned (and said), "they are in love."  Actually I do think this is true.
But what to make of the plotting?  It's wrong.
One says that they "knew" that no one would approve of or pay for a wedding, so they thought it best to just go to a JP and this is also why no family member was invited.

MILLENIALS WANT TO PAY OFF HUGE DEBT BEFORE MARRIAGE?

MARKET WATCH - MILLENIALS KILLING MARRIAGE - THAT'S GOOD


EXCERPT:
Lowry is one of many people in her age group waiting longer to tie the knot. The average age for marriage is now 27 for women and 29 for men compared to 21 years for women and 23 years old for men in 1963 — and that is if they get married at all. Only two in five millennials were married in 2015, compared to two in three in 1980.

Many couples cite high levels of student loan debt as an obstacle to marriage, and millennials are wise to wait to pay that off before tying the knot, said Brianna McGurran, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. She noted that people with more financial independence have the resources to break off relationships they may be forced to stay in otherwise just to split rent or pay the bills.


....
What happened to marrying and THEN PAYING OFF YOUR MUTUAL DEBT TOGETHER?

WANT ROMANCE BUT NOT SEX?

THE VERGE - ASEXUAL DATING - ONLINE DATING ISN'T EASY by Julie Kleigman

Great article!  But are you really "asexual" because you want to have an emotional attachment with someone (i.e. love them or really like them a lot) before you have sex?  (I always worry that some Freudian psychologist or not-religious nut is going to take most people and label them abnormal for not wanting to have commitment-free, "casual" sex.)  A funny article and you may be tempted to click on the "asexual umbrella" link.  Yes I do think that being under that umbrella is one of the reasons why some people are and remain NMNK.

EXCERPT: Asexuality remains poorly understood by the public at large, and includes a broad spectrum of orientations; some asexual people feel no sexual attraction toward others and may be averse to sex, while others who feel no sexual attraction may still happily have sex with their partners. Other aces (the umbrella term for those on the asexual spectrum) like Cutler identify as gray asexual or demisexual, meaning they sometimes feel sexual attraction once they develop an emotional connection with someone. Some may want romance but not sex; others fall on the aromantic spectrum, meaning they sometimes or never feel romantic attraction. For those who do feel romantic attraction (to men, women, or any combination of genders), that’s where online dating comes in.

A VALENTINE'S DAY WITHOUT A VALENTINE IS ... GREAT!

VALENTINE's DAY,  like so many other holidays, has been marketed as a gift-giving day, a day you have to spend to prove you like or love someone.  I think this day has put pressure on people to make a commitment or not too.  So I decided to do a little research and one site actually has a stat that FEBRUARY is the month that has the MOST BREAK UPS.  November isn't a great month for relationships either.  Let's face the fact that if someone doesn't want to be with you for the holidays - because they want to go to parties to meet someone else alone or don't want to spend money on you, November (right before Thanksgiving) is a great month to break up.  February is the month when the person has decided SPRING will provide them more opportunities to meet others.

Pixneo.com image

If you're dating someone and they are missing in action for Valentine's Day, then it's probably true that you are not a priority, and they don't want the relationship to go forward.  They may even be breaking up with you, or at least seeing how much you're going to put up with.  However, Valentine's Day should not be used to pressure a person to make a commitment, to give them a  deadline. When you get that commitment, especially if it's the day you get engaged, then for the rest of your relationship (note I did not say LIFE!), every Valentine's Day you've got that celebration pressure.  You will have to come up with gifts - so soon after Christmas and New Years - and go out to dinner - and all that - competing with the other couples for reservations.  And if the relationship does not work out, then every Valentine's Day you'll think about that. All those decorations hanging up, forcing this day at you, will remind you.  You're better off choosing another day for firsts to celebrate.


I'll tell you, it feels GOOD to not have those pressures.
It feels GOOD to not be thinking or worrying "Does he love me?" or "Will he propose?"
It feels GOOD not to be in ring competition with other women; I once had a very nice ring that I bought myself.  Since I lost it I have nor replaced it. I'm now ring free.

What of your friends who say things about marriage like, "We'll it's only a STARTER MARRIAGE!" or "Wonder if she'll EVER get married?"

I've got to tell  you that people who think this way are not people who can be friends.

Sister

STILL UNMARRIED (and SANE) AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Here between Christmas, New Years, and ... upcoming... Valentine's Day, I'm still unmarried after all these years.  This morning, learning from a senior citizen cousin that a widower in town has expressed the wrong kind of interest in me, I heard myself saying to her, "I'm convinced I was not fated to have a partner in his life."


That is true.
It's also true that I have done near nothing to find a husband or partner.


Valentine's Day is such as wistful holiday.
And I think that all these holidays, but most especially Valentine's Day is when NMNK are made to feel wrong to be alone - but not lonely!


If you are really truly lonely and do not esteem your own company, or the company of your relations, friends, coworkers, and strangers you meet here, there, and everywhere, then you will likely do something about it.

After all there are plentiful socializing networking opportunities on this Internet, if the local book club isn't doing it for you.


My senior citizen cousin is married over 50 years now, and though she met a few jerks before she married, this was all before the age of 21.  These days her 18 year old grand-daughter wants to marry her boyfriend and she is howling at her not to because she is too young.


I stay out of it, but I think love is love and that this 18 year old and her boyfriend do love each other.  Who am I to say that based on being too young she should give him up and get busy with education and a career instead?

FIVE YEARS TOGETHER - SHE WANTS MARRIAGE - HE DOESN'T : MAKE UP AND BREAK UP IS A GAME FOR FOOLS

My advice?

I told her I didn't think everyone was meant for marriage and that there is nothing essentially wrong with a person who doesn't marry.  However, they are incompatible in this one HUGE way.


They are both in their forties.  She says they've had the discussion several times. He just does not "see himself" married.  But I care about this woman, and I know that she does want to marry someday, and she wants her later years in life to be married years. Is the fact that she's hit her forties unmarried mean it's impossible?  Despite "great sex,"  "best friendship," and "loving to pieces," should she dump him?  Is it all her fault she's given five years to having love, having someone, having something, rather than nothing at all?

So I went on the Internet and there are sure a lot of people, including psychologists who are making this type of relationship pathological.  So much advice by educated women coming to the old "Why buy the cow when the milk is free." They should be embarrassed to have been to college, to be feminists, and think like that.

Yes, my friend HAS in so many ways agreed to have a non-marital relationship.  And it would be emotionally difficult for her to give him up.  Is he taking advantage of that?  Maybe. She reports all is well otherwise.

Basic advice on the net is to break up, or go to therapy seeking to find out what is wrong with the reluctant partner.

So, what is MY ADVICE?

My advice is to have a conversation in which she admits that she loves him, and it's going to be really hard to do so, but that she needs to be free of him for some time  - several months at least - so she can figure out what's next for her and he needs to be free of her for the same reason.  Yes, it's a break up.  Not punishing.  Not manipulative.  Not demanding.  Just standing up for herself and her needs.  And she must ask that all her family and friends not get involved, not give him reports on how she is; they really need to know what it's like to NOT have each other.  I imagine it will be awful.  Lonely nights, sexual frustration, questioning one's state of mind, maybe even depression.

The reason I suggest this though is that basically breaking up and making up and breaking up and making up is ADDICTIVE and the EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER in doing so is simply no good for anyone.  So it's time apart, the real deal.  If she still wants to marry him, she cannot take him back unless he wants to.  Guess who's in charge of that reapproachment?  Not her.  HIM.

Not easy. 

Because it may be turning ones back on love and years without anyone at all.  But I believe one must clear the way, and involved as she is, few men are going to invade that or risk it.


Sister

GLBTG NMNK GENDER NON CONFORMING

ALL THOSE LETTERS....
GAY LESBIAN BISEXUAL TRANSGENDER  NEVER MARRIED NO KIDS


I've been reminded that while some heterosexual people who are NMNK are accused of being one of those - gay lesbian bisexual or transgender people - some actually are, and I feel I've neglected those of you.


I learned that there is another definition that fits with the others sometimes


GENDER NON CONFORMING


In the sense that I have never been motivated to have babies, some people would think this is how I am.


Growing  up I know that when my school opened wood shop and metal crafts to female students some of us took those classes.  It was so sexist!  At the time males were allowed to take cooking and sewing!


Some of us took electives or side classes like POWDER PUFF MECHANICS!
It was considered a good thing for females to know how to change their own oil.  And soon we were all pumping our own gas and that sure eliminated some service station jobs.


If you were a woman who was good at auto mechanics it was assumed you were lesbian.
Unless you were also married to a man, a macho man.


So are we STILL assuming that a woman who is an auto mechanic is lesbian, or is she GENDER NON CONFORMING!?




I think you might be as confused as me. 


Must you be in a body that LOOKS feminine to be a WOMAN and enjoy CONFORMITY OF GENDER in order to be Transgender?


I am not a girly girl.
I remember going through a faze where I despised the color PINK.
I was an artist, and an experimenter with media, including mud and dyes, from a very young age.  I also drew hundreds of portraits of dancing girls, all with different costumes.


What if I was obsessed with drawing dancing men, what would that make me.


I like my body as is, and am satisfied that I'm female, but my unmarried, childless status, puts me into question, a new category.


Anyone else out there feel like me?

HOMELESS NMNK - THERE IS NEAR NO HELP FOR THE CHILDLESS, THE CLEAN LIVING, THE LAW ABIDING

This is a sobering post, because I'm one of thousands in Southern California who loves their independence and prefers it. 


Over the last year the stats are that there has been a 23 % increase in homelessness IN ONE YEAR.  It's estimated by a census, which means those who were available to be counted and is probably an extremely low count, that 50,000 are homeless in Los Angeles.  It's difficult to understand stats from this area, because the COUNTY of Los Angeles has many cities that are or are not included in certain stats. Some of these, such as Santa Monica, have their own stats.


Over the last few months several people I know have been effected by the RAPIDLY INCREASING COST OF HOUSING, and since over 60% of those living in the CITY of LA are RENTERS, and the cost of owning a home is making it increasingly impossible to do so, so many people are STUCK where they currently live, if indeed they are free from rental increases. 


If you are young, vital, recently educated, and just starting a career in this big city, you may be able to deal with paying a couple thousand for a one bedroom apartment, or three thousand to share with a roommate.  BUT IF YOU ARE NMNK, you may not WANT to deal with room mates after college days. You may equate adulthood with being able to afford independence.


My street has been effected by the construction of yet another "EXCLUSIVE" building, and we are so sick of hearing that term as well as the term LUXURY when the square footage is cramped, the parking is not adequate for the residence of the building or the street, the faucets are not gold plated, and the carpets are not plush and laid over concrete.  For two years we put up with noise, violations to the city ordinances about when hammering and  yelling must cease, dust and garbage, and trucks bringing materials and carting away refuse. Then the place opened, with a Major Domo kind of man, very smooth, as the leasing agent representative.  He assured everyone who asked that they would have no trouble getting tenants.  He said from out of state, such as from Manhattan.  Overall, it sounded like to me that these would be people transferred by their companies, or who were so used to ancient buildings, small spaces, and higher prices, that they would not know better here - at least not for a while.

It took six weeks to get the place rented, and the cars overflowing our street were expensive.


A security guard/doorman was assigned to the spot, a good idea, since we have graffiti, vandalism, and so on in the area.


Soon after this, the landlords on the street began raising rents, usually with 30 days notice, a small period of time to entrap tenants, with$300 a month rent increases.  As some people fled, unable to pay this rent, the signs of availability started to go up.  An old building displaced a senior citizen with a rent of $1575.00 for a one bedroom.  A building that had a sign up from the City of LA telling tenants to put their rents in escrow because the owner had failed to do demanded repairs, fired the management company, raised the rent, and did the repairs.


On I could go.


I presently have an associate, a mom with two children, who has been renting an RV in a driveway for nine months, another associate, a single mom, who has after two years in with her mom, been granted a single in another town for a miracle $400 a month, another person with a disabled child who after over 20 years in the same place was given 6 months notice of a DOUBLING of RENT, and at month 5, near homeless, was granted a senior building voucher and got in there, someone else who could no longer afford after 23 years living in a vehicle, and so on.


SO I STARTED LOOKING FOR RESOURCES - HELP FOR THESE PEOPLE.


If you are NMNK you have near no resources.
If you are a single mother yes, a family yes, drug addicted yes, mentally ill yes, and already on SSI or SSDI yes.  But if you have not brought children into this world you can't afford, if you are employed or self employed, if  you are healthy, if you are sane, THE STREET is WHERE YOU MAY END UP.


I'm asking YOU to check out what your area has when it comes to resources for people like us!
Advocate for us to be recognized as worthy of help.