Home by Choice

• Based on the way his parents treat him, a child will form certain expectations on how others will treat him.
• Children judged to be securely attached to both parents exhibit the most confidence & competence.
• Believe in personality change and healing for the un-nurtured self. Confront the wounded child.
• Insecurely attached children often become aggressive, hostile, or uncooperative with peers, retreat from others, or become passive/withdrawn.
• Give kids time & attention!!
• If a child isn't raised with love, time, and affection they won't have the emotional resources to give that to their kids.
• One study showed that moms who chose to work were, “lonely, only children.” Their homes were filled with tension and frequent episodes of martial strife. Most women did not have a close relationship with both parents.
• Psychologists found a relationship between the presence/absence of nurture in childhood and the desire to have children.
• One study showed women who identified with their fathers (and not their mothers) often became careerists, especially if they rejected their mother's traditional lifestyle.
• Careerists withdraw not because they don't care, but because it hurts to care.
• Ruth Josselson, “Finding herself” says “the most important task facing women today is the formation of identity that a woman bases her sense of herself as well as her vision for the structure of her life.”
  Working women: identity was based on connections vs career.
• How can a mom maximize those hard, but sweet years of child rearing (the summer of her life).
• A woman can flourish her first/talents during her years at home: gardening, exercising, writing.
• “Any man who works 40-60 hrs/wk and commutes has little time after functioning as husband and father to pursue his own interests.” Mom can. And she can take time to help with those household chores the husband lacks time to do.
• Make birthdays & holidays special, memorable, happy. Take turns telling the b-day person what they mean to you.
• What about you who were un-nurtured, who feel isolated & alone? You may struggle with depression or have a hard time organizing your day. What do you do if you feel overwhelmed.
• Friendships with other women are the antidote for depression.
• Therapy does not heal the soul. Psychiatry & psychology were effective at diagnosing human ills, but could it exercise the soul? No. Ask God to make you whole.
• In one study 80% of husbands felt their relationship lacked intimacy if the woman worked full time.
• When a woman is at home, men need to have emotionally and physically accessible wives to feel secure.
• “Men need a sensitive woman who can get to the heart of the matter. We men dance around personal issues. We're competitive and don't' probe the way women do.”
• Nurturing our husbands: mend have physical strength, but they do not possess our emotional strength.
• We never outgrow our need for our father's blessings. Children, esp boys, need to hear “I love you” and get hugs from Dad.
• Men tend to struggle with careers in their 20's & 30's only to turn toward relationships in their 40's & 50's. While women establish family and friend connections in our 20's & 30's, then begin to focus on productive ventures outside the home in our 40's & 50's.