Dating and the Single Parent Essay Example for Free

Dating and the Single Parent Essay Summary In the book Dating and the Single Parent Ron Deal walks the single parent through the process of dating again. This book is broken into three sections. Section one has five chapters and is titled â€Å"Getting Past the Butterflies and Warm Fuzzes.† In the beginning Deal starts with â€Å"Dating in a Crowd: Dating with Purpose.† (29) With this in mind the reader begins to understand you will be dating the entire family. Deal describes different types of daters, and warns the reader against the â€Å"Consumer daters who want guarantees† (44) about the dates. These consumer daters want the dates to be their all in all and meet their every need. Deal also describes the thought of â€Å"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall; Am I Ready to Date? (47) This section describes â€Å"the impact loss has on you, and your willingness to surrender to God’s direction regarding divorce and remarriage.† (58) While determining if you are ready to date; Deal lists the readiness factors: can you handle being alone, trusting in God, looking at past issues, and asking the questions like, â€Å"What in my past can I not shake?† This is getting yourself and kids ready for dating. While thinking of fear as the main hurdle in beginning to date, Deal suggests you not â€Å"sidestep† (83) your fear but â€Å"acknowledge it.† (83) Not only your fear but how to handle the kids’ fears and concerns in the dating world. Deal explains â€Å"When a parent dates, kids feel the shift in direction away from them and the family; this ignites their fear of more loss.† (98) The second section of the book is called â€Å"Going Fishing† (115) and talks about finding love. â€Å"Finding love in all the right places †¦and in all the wrong ways† (117) talks about defining the  relationship or the DTR; there are three ways to look at relationships; we need to learn when to yield, stop or run with yellow, red and green lights. â€Å"Going deeper† (163) reminds us to think of where we are in life. Deal states â€Å"Single people need that perspective so that won’t overvalue getting married, and married people need that perspective so they won’t lose sight of their purpose in being together.† (165) â€Å"Marital Commitment and Stepfamily Preparation† (181) is the topic of the third section of the book. It is about getting re-engaged and making decisions about getting married. Guidelines are given about what things to look for such as commitment and trust issues, how to be open with the children (young and adult). Some key steps in how to become a blended family are listed. Deal suggests exercises on how to be introduced, recognize loss in your child, planning the wedding and including the children, and telling the ex. This book takes you through the processes of wanting to date again, dating, and choosing the right type of person to date. The next steps are about the engagement, telling families and children you’re getting married and creating a happily blended family. Potential Use for Christian Couples The chapter on â€Å"Yellow Light. Red Light. Green Light.† (141) is a chapter that most pastors need to share with their clients in the premarital counseling. This chapter and the concepts to be taught and learned can save couples from a lot of pain down the road and give additional skills for making a marriage more compatible. â€Å"Yellow lights saying slow down† (143) warm that things are great for now, however when you get married and the honeymoon is over rough times are coming. When you are trying to carefully blend families you need to make sure no one has on â€Å"rose-colored glasses† (145) or is ignoring the bumps in the road that will turn in to mountains later on if not dealt with before the couple gets married. A counselor needs to advise a couple to slow down if â€Å"loneliness or desperation† (146) are detected in the counseling sessions. This could indicate an underlying problem that will come out later in the marriage. The person with one of these disorders may demand that the other person in the relationship try to be their all in all, and no one can be everything to someone. Counselors should consider a postponement of a marriage if one of the clients comes in with any character traits like: â€Å"quick temper, intimidating, anger  reactions, chemical or physical abuse, can’t say no, constantly blaming others, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, problems staying calm, financial problems, disengagement with family, hiding previous relationships, or diagnosed personality disorder.† (147-148) If a person has experienced or is experiencing one of these challenges, this counselor will strongly suggest that it is dealt with before the marriage takes place. One of these problems will cause too much stress for most marriages to overcome. Deal suggests there are red stoplights. If you â€Å"have extreme differences in parenting styles† (151) you need to stop dating. This counselor would agree. Raising children is a very hard job when you agree; however, when you disagree children tend to play one parent off the other causing conflict between the parents. You need to remember you are not only marrying the person, but also the children. Another red light could be the ex-spouse. If he/she causes constant trouble, you will be in constant turmoil in the new marriage and will need to consider canceling your plans to marry. Deal suggests other red flags such as cohabitation. This counselor would agree with Deal that cohabitation leans toward persons â€Å"who have negative attitudes toward marriage, increase their divorce risk by 50%, are less sexually trustworthy, have lower religious commitment, and are tempted to slide into marriage.† (154) Cohabitation is not biblical, in Genesis 2:24 gives us the standard for all marriages and in Matthew 19:5 Jesus tells us marriage is a legal and binding relationship. The â€Å"green light† (159) means everything is good and you can proceed with the dating or marriage plans. In the â€Å"green light† stage you can define your relationship. At this point Deal suggests you can share your relationship with your children. This also is the stage during which it is suggested you take the â€Å"Couple Checkup† (169). There are two advantages to doing it in this stage: first â€Å"it provides you and your partner an objective X ray of your relationship health.† (169) Second â€Å"learning about your weaknesses helps you as a couple target specific ways to improve.† (169) This counselor will encourage couples in the red light zone to take a break and consider not dating any longer. If they are in the yellow light zone this counselor will encourage them to consider looking deeply at what the problems are and working through them before proceeding with the relationship. In the green light zone this counselor will encourage them to be willing to talk about issues when they arise, to be willing to  talk about them, and to work on a compromise. Deal states: â€Å"Confidence calms the heart and reduces anxiety†. (194) This counselor could not agree more, and knowing where you stand in a relationship is the most important element. Solidifying the relationship so both persons know how each other feels and what to expect keeps the green light going. Telling the children if you have children will be important. A plan needs to be made about how to tell them and expect the unexpected. One needs to expect them to be happy and for them to be angry about the decision. Letting the children know what will happen will help them through the fear and anger. Deal does not go into depth about what to do if the families do not want this marriage. What if the families do not like the person you want to marry? This counselor agrees the spouse that was married to the ex ought to tell him/her before the wedding day. Once the wedding day has taken place often times the children are going to be stressed out by this and misbehave. Deal suggests often times when things settle down from the wedding the child parent relationship will work itself out. This is a relationship neither party has had to handle before and it will be new challenges to both the parent and the child. Deal encourages parents to have a united front with the children. (206) If they do not have a â€Å"unified team everything will begin to crumble.† (207) Critique Deal speaks about â€Å"commitment and trust† (187) issues with couples. He explains that marriage is complicated and requires a couple to not be selfish. â€Å"God in his infinite wisdom ask each person to make a covenant that binds them together throughout life,† (187) or â€Å"until death do us part.† (187) Elwell states in the time of Christ a man could â€Å"divorce his wife for the most trivial of reasons† (347) from the â€Å"Hillelite Pharisees.† (347) This would suggest that if you take the side of the Hillelite Pharisees, our no fault divorce laws have been around for centuries. It is a delicate dance to get someone to commit to marriage to you when you are ready to commit to marriage and they will not. Deal gives several ideas: â€Å"Patiently continue dating, wrestle with your impatience, identify any specific concerns, give time for the hesitant person to find resolution, and at some point, the higher desire person will grow weary of waiting.† (188) Deal does later in the book suggest a time line of five years is a reasonable time to wait on  someone. If you have waited for five years and they still have not made a decision but you love them and cannot imagine life without that person do you walk away? Would it not be like a divorce? This counselor would not suggest anyone stay with someone for more than the five years unless they can make a decision to marry or not to marry. Deal speaks about crockpots and blenders in the chapter about â€Å"Preparing for a Good Blend.† The crockpots are those couples who move slowly with low heat,† (208) while the blender couples are those who â€Å"move quickly with high velocity.† (208) Deal states: â€Å"It is far wiser to adopt the crockpot cooking style.† (208) Otherwise slow and study is a much better way to blend a family than trying to quickly trying to force them to be a blended family. In this chapter he gives ideas about how to create stepfamilies. He says: â€Å"Younger children under the age of five may require far less time to soften toward stepparents than those between the ages of ten and fifteen years. Also, on occasion, a stubborn ingredient may resist softening and retain a sour taste. In either case, keep cooking.† This counselor would whole heartedly agree with his wisdom. The younger children are when stepparents arrive into their life, the easier it is to accept t hem. Deal also gives ideas about how to handle situations like: â€Å"getting married, calling a stepfather Daddy, combining holidays and other special-day traditions, and taking pictures as a family.† (209-210) With statistics saying that â€Å"fifty percent of first marriages fail and sixty percent of second marriages fail† (smartmarriages.com) this counselor believes Deal has made great recommendations in his book about how to blend families. Blended families will take work and Deal says that many times in this book. This book is an easy read with thought provoking topics. Some of the topics have a different way of looking at them than traditional thoughts. This book is a must read if you are thinking of remarrying or marrying someone who has been married before. References Deal, R. (2012). Dating and the single parent. Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Publishing. Eller, W. (2001). Evangelical dictionary of theology. 2n ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House. Marano, H. E., Divorced? Don’t even think of remarrying until you read this. www.smartmarriages.com. Accessed November 8, 2014.

Sophocles Antigone - Antigone as Bad Citizen :: Antigone essays

Antigone – The Bad Citizen    Being a good citizen often involves doing something out of the ordinary to help others. Sometimes, that involves going against the will of others to do what the good citizen might think is best. Although this is traditionally the case, the biggest factor in being a good citizen is great respect for the nation in which one lives. If one wants to be a good citizen, he or she might go out of his or her way to help others, however, must do so within the rules of the nation. In the Greek Drama by Sophocles, entitled Antigone, the hero, Antigone, shows, what I would call, bad citizenship. How is this? Why is she being a bad citizen? The setting of the drama is in a fictional kingdom known of as Thebes. This kingdom is basically run by a set of rules and laws. Whether they are necessary or not, these rules must be obeyed. In Thebes, one of the rules states that Antigone's brother is not allowed to due a respectable death and therefor, will not have a proper funeral. Antigone is torn apart by this. Her brother whom she loved very much will not be able to have a respectable funeral. She explains in the drama how much she disagrees with the rules of the land. Because of this disapproval toward the law, she takes it upon herself to remove the corps of her brother from it's assigned post so she can do whatever she wants with it. She has broken the law. Although what she is has done is the right thing to do in her mind, the law states that it is not allowed. Throughout the drama, she consults her sister, Ismene, about whether or not she feels though she should commit this crime or not. Ismene makes it clear that she sh ould not and attempts to discourage her sister from doing what she did. Contrary to the advice of her sister, Antigone does indeed commit this crime for she feels that it is what a good person would do. To the average American, Antigone's actions might be considered the right thing to do.

The Eighth Amendment

The eighth amendment is defined as â€Å"excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted (Lectlaw, 2010). This amendment was adopted as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791. The eighth amendment serves the purpose of protection of those who are innocent until proven guilty and to ensure that all persons are treated fairly in the criminal justice system. Defendants who are not released on bail are being denied the opportunity to prepare their defense. Also, denying bail or having excessive bail imprisons the defendant without being properly convicted. There are cases, however, where bail must be denied or set excessively high. If an unconvicted defendant is feared to be a danger to the community or a flight risk, the constitution permits the denial of bail (FindLaw, 2010). The â€Å"no excessive fines clause of the eighth amendment presides fines directly imposed by, and payable to the government and in civil forfeiture cases† (Onecle, 2009). The term â€Å"excessive† still has not been defined by the United States court system. Asset forfeiture, however, has become a key element in the war on drugs as the government has the power to seize property of persons that have not yet been convicted of a crime (Hornberger, 2005). The law â€Å"there shall not be cruel and unusual punishment† under the eighth amendment means that society will deem what is cruel and unusual. The standards of society transform over time as citizens â€Å"do better when they know better†. Medevil practices such as cutting off the hand of a theif are obviously unacceptable forms of punishment in today’s modern society. While the death penalty is used in some states for those who commit the most heinous of crimes, not all states impose such a severe sentence. The first known execution within the United States occurred in the year 1607 in Jamestown. Captain George Kendall was shot to death by a firing squad for allegedly spying against the British (Justice, 2009). Since then, there has been a struggle among society and lawmakers attempting to decide if the death penalty falls under unusual and cruel punishment. In the late 1960s, â€Å"all but 10 states had laws authorizing capital punishment† (Justice, 2009). During Furman v. Georgia in 1972, the U. S. Supreme Court decided against capital punishment on federal and state levels. The majority ruled in a five to four vote that the death penalty violated the rights of the eighth amendment (Justice, 2009). Over 600 inmates sitting on death row had their sentences overturned between the years 1967 and 1972. This suspension of the death penalty continued until 1976. During the Gregg v. Georgia case in 1976, the court decided to uphold a procedure in which the trial of â€Å"capital crimes was bifurcated into guilt-innocence and sentencing phases† (Wikipedia, 2010). These proceedings entailed a jury to first decide if a defendant is guilty. Based upon that decision, then a jury decides whether any aggravating and mitigating factors in assessing the ultimate penalty: life in prison or capital punishment (Wikipedia, 2010). In 2002, the United States Supreme Court decided that the execution of criminals who are mentally ill to be cruel and unusual punishment. Also, in 2005, it was decided that the execution of criminals under the age of 18 to be cruel and unusual as well. As of the year 2008,†the death penalty is authorized by 37 states, the federal government and the U. S. Military† (Clarkprosecutor, 2008). Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota, North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Rhode Island do not support capital punishment (Clarkprosecutor, 2008). If the past has any influence on the future, the laws governing the death penalty will probably change time and time again. Society must do the best they can with the knowledge they acquire. Who is to say that the death penalty will be abolished forever or that possibly the death penalty might become usual punishment for crimes less than heinous? The future, in regards to the death penalty, may hold some surprises for us. Only the future will reveal what is to come. ClarkProsecutor. Org, 2008. The death penalty. Retrieved on January 31, 2010 from http://www. clarkprosecutor. org/html/death/dpusa. htm FindLaw (2010). The eighth amendment. Retrieved on January 30, 2010 from http://www. findlaw. com/ Hornberger, Jacob. G. The bill of rights (2005). Retrieved on January 30, 2010 from http://www. fff. org/freedom/fd0503a. asp Justice (2009). History of the Death Penalty. Retrieved on January 30, 2010 from http://justice. uaa. alaska. edu/death/history. html LectLaw (2010). The eighth amendment. Retrieved on January 30, 2010 from http://www. lectlaw. com/def/e082. htm Onecle (2009). Excessive Fines. Retrieved onJanuary 30, 2009 from http://law. onecle. com/constitution/amendment-08/02-excessive-fines. html Wikipedia (2010). The eighth amendment. Retrieved on January 30, 2010 from http://www. wikipedia. org

U.s. Military Draft History - 1449 Words

The draft started on April 16, 1862 for the Confederate States during the Civil War. The Union then conducted their own draft on March 3, 1863. The Northern 1862 draft was an attempt to let states handle their own conscriptions, instead of the old volunteer militia. The next draft took place on September 16, 1940 for World War I and remained in effect continuously until 1973. The president, Woodrow Wilson, decided that â€Å"A draft was needed and nearly 3,000,000 soldiers were drafted following the Service Act of 1917.† (Understanding the U.S. Military Draft History 1). The reasoning behind President Wilson calling for the draft is because â€Å"Before the draft only 73,000 soldiers volunteered during the first 6 weeks of World War I† (Understanding the U.S. Military Draft History 1). Before July of 1973 â€Å"The draft was in effect continuously from 1940 to 1973† (Smith 1). This means that more than 10,000,000 men were drafted and sent off into battle througho ut the past wars. One of the most controversial drafts was the infamous Vietnam War Era. The Vietnam war was also called the Ten Thousand Day War because of how long it took to end. The United States was not initially involved in the starting of the Vietnam war. The United States got involved after France requested to leave of the war after suffering a huge loss in the battle of Dien Bien Phu, which was the first Indochina war in Vietnam. What is Indochina exactly? Indochina is a peninsula of Southeastern Asia that includesShow MoreRelatedShould the United States have Mandatory Military Conscription?966 Words   |  4 Pagesup with information from several studies providing evidence for continuing the worlds greatest all volunteer (entry) military force. For the vast majority of our nation’s history, the United States has had an all volunteer military. 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My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelaine,† (Adams). Never did this idea become so ingrained in the American population than the largest conflict to ever occur on earth, World War IIRead MoreThe Military Draft is Unconstitutional Essay724 Words   |  3 Pageswere times when a militarized force wasn’t nearly large enough for an impending war as necessary to stand even that of a fighting chance towards victory. Our nation’s solution to this problem was creating the military draft, which most recently was used during the Vietnam War . The military draft, or Selective Service System, is Conscription, or in other words â€Å"forced labor demanded by some established authority† (Worddiq). â€Å"From 1948 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were