Love After Kids
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
    • I'm #2... and that's OK, most of the time
    • 7 Myths of Successful Relationships
    • 10 Easy Couples Therapy Exercises
    • Get Our Best Tips
  • Contact
  • Resources
  • Relationship Reboot eBook

Dinner with pa-pa: Learning from 70+ years of love

3/28/2017

 
I’m on my way home from a short trip to New York City. I spent the weekend in a work-group with colleagues and spent some time with family. Deb came with me and we left the kids at home with our super angel nanny, Olga.
 
It was a bit of a whirlwind, so there wasn’t time to see friends. We had dinner with my parents a couple of times and with my 94-year-old grandfather, Pa-Pa.
 
My grandmother died 20 years ago and he has been in his current relationship for about 19 years now.

Read More

Controlled folly: the delusion of certainty

3/21/2017

 
Certainty, regarding just about anything, rubs me the wrong way.
www.LoveAfterKids.com
Certainty, regarding just about anything, rubs me the wrong way. Our realities, perspectives, thoughts, beliefs and experiences are all so subjective. Who do you think you would be if you were born on the other side of the world, speaking a different language and immersed in a different culture?

You’d be a different person. You would see things completely differently than you do now. Maybe God would be an elephant or the sun.

We don’t tend to think about that when we describe who we are and what we believe. We become attached to our subjective truths as they develop and reinforce themselves and we “hold them to be self-evident”.

This is as true in religion as it is in politics and any other belief system that we choose to embrace and cathect.
​

I read the Carlos Castaneda trilogy when I was in college. One of things that I was drawn to was that there was so much mystery surrounding the author himself and whether or not what he wrote about was real.

Read More

Durdle the turtle king and the fall of the wall

3/21/2017

 
Dear reader: This is a bit of a departure from my usual posts about relationships and parenting, although it was born when, over the weekend, I was reading Yertle the Turtle, by the great Dr. Seuss, to my daughter, Emma. I was inspired to do a bit of riffing. Enjoy!
Donald Trump as Yertle the Turtle
From HTTP://BILLMOYERS.COM/STORY/YERTLE-COMMANDER-CHIEF/
On the far-away island of U.S. of A...Durdle the Turtle was king for a day. A nice little land. It was clean. It was neat. The water was warm. There was plenty to eat. The turtles had everything turtles might need. And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.
​
They were…until Durdle, the king of them all, decided the kingdom he ruled would soon fall. “I’m ruler,” said Durdle, “of all that I see. But there’s not enough white. That’s the trouble, you see. This will not do.” And he called up his team. “We must build a wall. No, this is obscene. It ought to be higher!” he said with a frown. “Bigger than China’s and paid by the brown! If it could be high, how much greater I’d be! What a king! I’d be ruler of all I could see!”

Read More

no more excuses: Your relationship with your partner has a huge impact on your kids

3/14/2017

 
“Unhealthy marriages characterized by substantial parental conflict pose a clear risk for child well-being, both because of the direct negative effects that result when children witness conflict between parents, and because of conflict's indirect effects on parenting skills.”
​- Cummings and Davies, 1994; Webster-Stratton, 2003
"The poorer the quality of parents’ relationships, the more negative developmental outcomes in children. This is true in multiple ways and across a range of variables—sleep patterns, physical health, infant & toddler attachment, interpersonal competence, intellectual and emotional development, and social outcomes--and across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic lines."
​– Rhona Berens, Ph.D, CPCC
​One of the gravest mistakes we can make as parents is to assume that our relationships do not impact our kids.
One of the gravest mistakes we can make as parents is to assume that our relationships do not impact our kids.
​Here are some common myths and corresponding facts regarding the impact that the couple relationship has on children:

Read More

the road less traveled: journeying out of habit & routine

3/7/2017

 
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
One of the things that I love about young kids is the absence of habit and routine.
One of the things that I love about young kids is the absence of habit and routine. They don't care about being on time. They're not interested in getting somewhere, achieving goals, or following protocols. They live fully immersed in the present moment.

​They aren't worrying about how they behaved the day before or what they will be doing the day after. That's why they easily get, what we adults consider to be "distracted", which is really unadulterated presence.

This presence can be magical when we adults slow down enough to join them there. It can also be frustrating and crazy-making when we have to get somewhere or do something and their presence inconveniences us.

Read More

    Archives

    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016

    Categories

    All
    Communication
    Parenting
    Relationships

    RSS Feed

STAY CONNECTED
Click here to receive the latest updates.
We welcome your feedback and questions. Click here to contact us.

Home

About

Blog

Contact

Resources

RElationship reboot ebook

Love After Kids © 2016. All Rights Reserved.