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Children
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I want to find my birthmother
12 Mar 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I am adopted and I want to find my birthmother. I feel guilty about this. My parents have always been very open about my adoption as they have been with my brother about his. I want to begin a search but feel like I must do it in secret so I don’t hurt my parents or my brother. We have been a very close family and my brother and I have had close brother and sister relationship. I feel disloyal even though I know I am unlikely to change in how I feel toward my parents and my brother once I find my birth parents and learn all about them. I am 24. He is 19. Please help.”
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Secure a powerful week:
11 Mar 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
- Decide that what other people think about you is none of your business – and then live like it. This will especially help you to resist taking yourself too seriously. You are just not that important, really. Once you know that AND believe it, you’ll be aghast at how significant your voice will be in whatever context you operate.
- Repair misunderstandings quickly.
- Affirm others honestly but without ulterior (stated or unstated) motive. Affirming others so they will do what you want or so you may get what you want is manipulation in one of its darkest shades.
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Seven-year-old is very mean to me…..
08 Mar 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My girlfriend’s daughter is 7 and very sensitive and selfish. Her mom doesn’t side with her on her behavior and she does scold and punishes daughter for being this way. When I am with my girlfriend, her daughter competes for her mom’s attention. I get that completely. What I don’t get is how to deal with her daughter’s sensitivity. I don’t yell at her and we get along! She calls me her ‘best buddy.’ But for example, if I do something wrong, and I mean something trivial. Something like getting my hair cut, she gives me a mean look and says ‘well I guess you don’t want to be my best friend anymore!’ I hear this 3 times a day. She grew comfortable with me and now she is mean all the time. I just take it. I’m starting to regret every time I do something for her. I feel as though I’m teaching her, ‘go ahead, disrespect me. In the end you’ll always get what you want.’ What should I do?”
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Granddaughter uses foul language on FaceBook. What should I do?
29 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“My granddaughter is ‘friends’ with me on Facebook so I to read all her comments which are sometimes not nice. It’s actually not nice language either. My daughter would not be happy and I don’t want to be a tell tale. Do I keep it to myself and keep praying? Do I delete her and therefore have my head in sand? Not only I can see all her comments but so can many other people.”
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Stay out of pre-existing relationships
22 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My stepson (16) is really very unkind to my husband (his father) and yet he is always nice and polite to me. He says horrible things under his breath as if he still resents the divorce and doesn’t trust my husband anymore. We have been married for three years and we are very happy. It is just this one thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth every two weeks when his son visits. Please help.”
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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