Re: Re: Male Single Parenting
  By: Nancy Backus to Damon Getsman on Sat Jan 04 2014 22:23:45

 NB> Mumps at that age or older has that rep...  I suppose that if one ran a
 NB> very high temp with chicken pox (or measles, for that matter) one could
 NB> have various things be affected.  Childhood diseases do tend to be worse
 NB> on adults that get them... one reason my mom tried to make sure I got
 NB> the measles by making me stay in close contact with a younger sibling
 NB> that did have them... I never did get measles, of any sort, so
 NB> apparently I have a natural immunity there...  :)

  Yeah I've heard of other systemic complications becoming more and more common
as age at onset of infection rises, but the reproductive harm was a new one to
me.  Gah.  I know I got it harder at 14 than most any of the kids I know that
got it during the single digits.  Thinking back to how bad I had it, it must be
pretty horrifying at later ages.

 NB> Yup...  no easy answers...  ;)  I agree that having a child to be
 NB> responsible for can kick up one's maturity level... as long as one
 NB> accepts that responsibility...  :)  And similar situations can produce
 NB> the same reponse... like being the oldest sibling suddenly totally
 NB> responsible for the younguns, due to some family catastrophe...  And
 NB> then there are those that one wonders why they had a child, since it
 NB> obviously is only a hindrance or an inconvenience to them... probably
 NB> were only thinking of some implied glamour or some such...

  I always kind of knew that my priorities would get a dramatic reboot for the
better once I had someone relying on me..  I don't know, it kind of sounds like
a wrong reason, doing it for a reason outside of myself, but I don't really
know how else to explain it.  My priorities were screwed up waaaaay beyond the
norm for those ages between my early teens and late twenties.  At some point it
became almost a life or death situation to me; adding the 'almost' might have
just been an effort by me to pad how dire the situation was to myself there,
actually.  Regardless, it didn't happen immediately upon my newly taken
responsibility as a fulltime single father, but the change started immediately,
and it put me onto much more stable ground very quickly.
  I remember some of the ones that you're talking about, purposely getting
pregnant in their early teens for reasons of 'implied glamor'...  Never did
understand it totally, although the idea had some superficial attractions for
me, as well.  I'm glad I waited until I did; any later and I probably would've
ended up in the grave, any earlier, and I probably wouldn't have given my child
what he or she would truly have deserved as far as opportunity and stability
goes.

 NB> In a better part of town, things probably won't be as much in your
 NB> face... but there may still be some issues... Just have to help your son
 NB> learn how to deal with peer pressure, and hope that he can make some
 NB> friends that can provide peer support...  I suspect things aren't that
 NB> much different from when I was growing up, or when we were raising our
 NB> son, but there seems to be less structured support for kids that want to
 NB> do the right thing... 

  He's getting a crash course in that very well now.  We're at a place that has
6 kids on most days, and 8 a few days a week when some of the part-time custody
kiddies are around.  :)  It's taking other people to pull me aside and let him
learn from the social interaction, instead of wanting to always protect his
feelings, but when they help me to realize that he's developing social skills
that were always above my level, because I never experienced that or got used
to it, well then it's a little easier.  I still can't function well in a room
where everybody pairs off and/or goes into small, little groups.  I'm fine with
one or two people, or doing speeches to a hundred people.  Throw me into a
party, though, and I'm doomed to be a wallflower.

 NB> Some people are just more committed to the idea of commitment than they
 NB> are to actually handling real commitment...  My little brother married a
 NB> woman he'd been living with for a number of years beforehand, she'd been
 NB> pushing him to commit, and finally he came round, and they got married,
 NB> saying that nothing really would be different in their relationship. 
 NB> Less than 6 months later, she wanted out... he was devastated... turns
 NB> out the "non-issues" were more important than they were figuring... and
 NB> her friends treated her differently as a married woman rather than a
 NB> shacking-up one... go figure...

  Hrm...  This one really leads me to introspect...  Might be a little while
before I'm able to process and learn about my own self and what exactly I need
vs. what I want vs. what would be best for me on this.  I've been struggling
with that very issue, I think, since I was in my very early teens, maybe even a
little before that, as early on as it may seem.

 NB> That certainly doesn't make it any easier for you, does it... ;0  If it
 NB> makes you feel any better, being without a mother is probably better for
 NB> him than having someone that isn't going to be a good mother to him...
 NB> you may be able to be that both mother and father to him that you are
 NB> doing now, and that might be best.  Of course, that's not saying that it
 NB> wouldn't be wonderful to find the right woman that would complete your
 NB> little family and fill in all sorts of gaps... while you do the same for
 NB> her...  :)

  Well, yeah, it's definitely better for him this way, after what I saw
previously in her behavior.  It makes things tough, though.  I certainly hope
that I meet the right woman some day, but I also hope it's at a time when I am
able to devote 100% to that woman.  Right now I think that's out of my grasp. 
I just keep expecting everything to go bad, after all the years of knives in
the back and other treachery.  Not that all of it has been at me; I won't lie,
more than a little of it has come _from_ me, as well.  :(  I'm keeping my
fingers crossed, and in the meantime, I shall continue to work on myself. 
Which is a struggle every day, as I'm presented with unending and repetitive
examples of people that are just _perfect_ for pointing my finger at.  ;)
  Thank you, for this whole discussion.  It is really nice to be able to talk
about some of these things.
  Peace & namaste.

  -Damon

    --Damo dice, "Perhaps today IS a good day to die!"
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