Banned Birthday Cupcakes, Ukrainian Fistfights, and American Freedom

There was a bit of a tiff in the Ukrainian parliament the other day.  It caught the attention of this blogger's Ukrainian family.

It seems that some folks would like to make Russian one of the official languages of Ukraine.

It seems silly, I suppose, to some.  Grown men beating each other bloody over a language.  To us Americans, it may seem awfully...foreign.


But, here is the thing:
Between 1932 and 1933, somewhere in the range of 2.4 to 7.5 million Ukrainians were starved to death by their occupiers, Soviet Russia, because they didn't care to give up their private property rights to the Communist state. The state believed that the grain grown by the peasants was "Socialist Property" and forbid the peasants from eating the produce of their own farms. The government, instead, directed them to eat their "government issued" share from from special "collective farms".

The Ukrainian peasants believed that their grain was their own, just like it had been before the Russians showed up.  They had grown it on their own land; they would not turn it over to Stalin. So, Stalin killed them, by starvation, one by one.

It was called the Holomodor.  Some compare it to the Holocaust.

So, Ukrainians get a little prickly when you refer to them as Russians.

click for license

In my school district, it has been decreed that parents may not bring fast food lunches in to their own children, and that classrooms may have only two parties per year, with snacks that follow district guidelines.  There will be no birthday cupcakes because, apparently, the state knows what is best for us.

It's not that I'm a big fan of parents feeding their kids fast food.  That's not the point.  It's that I am an enormous fan of freedom, self-reliance, and self-determination.  We seem to have a generation coming up that thinks that government provided health care, birth control, abortion, housing, food, and spending money are more important than the right to choose one's own destiny.

The one who pays the bills runs the world.  Personally, I'd rather live in a cardboard box, on my own hard-earned dime,  than be told where, how, and when to live.  Apparently, though, those who share my views are becoming the minority camp.

I am, frankly, more than a little terrified.
Our only hope is that we might open our eyes to the lessons of history, before it becomes too late.

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The View From My Soapbox: The Way to Stay Married Is...And Sunday Ponderings Link-up

"You only get married for the first time, once."  Yes, I actually know someone who has said that.

We live in a divorce saturated culture.  "No fault" divorces are handed out like candy.  According to U.S. Census Bureau records, one out of every two children lives in a single parent household at some time before reaching 18.

It seems that children are now growing up in a culture that tells them to expect divorce, as the norm.  I'm not sure why children from divorced households would be inclined to stay married through the rocky periods, when their parents didn't.




But, here's the thing:

The way to stay married is....

to stay married.

Any couple who has been married fifteen years or more will tell you that it was not always rosy.  Every marriage has difficult periods.  Every couple has to learn to be married.  A couple has a choice to stay together through the difficult periods, and learn to make it work ... or ... to separate and find someone else to have rocky periods with, because no one marries the right person.  Good marriages are not about being lucky enough to find the right person.  Good marriages are about carefully choosing someone, whom you enjoy sharing your life with, who is as committed to marriage as you are.

Good marriages are about being even more committed to marriage, than you are to the person to whom you are married...

...because once in a while, through the years, for a short while, you are going to be a little frustrated with that person, or you, maybe, aren't even actually going to like that person very much.  And that is just the truth.

Having said that, the "three A's", abuse, addiction, and adultery, are another issue.  I'm talking here about marriages that don't involve these things.

"Sticking with it" is a windy road, but it is a road that leads to lifelong happiness with someone you love deeply...because in the end, marriage is really about sharing lifes up and downs, challenges and joys, everyday experiences and irreplaceable moments,...  with your very best friend, after all.

Photo: StacyK, click for license

So, hang in there folks.  If you don't stay on the road, you never reach the destination.

...And that is what this old broad has to say about that.

Blessings Dear Friends,
~Michelle

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Two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stay married reported that their marriages improved within five years.  The most unhappy marriages report the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as "very unhappy," almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce are happily married five years later: Linda J. Waite, Don Browning, William J. Doherty, Maggie Gallagher, Ye Luo, and Scott M. Stanley, “Does Divorce Make People Happy? Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages,” (New York: Institute for American Values, 2002): 148-49.

The loss of commitment to the ideal of maital permanence was the reason for high divorce rates among the adult children of divorce.  Paul R. Amato and Danelle D. DeBoer, "The Transmission of Marital Instability Across Generations: Relationship Skills or Commitment to Marriage?" Journal of Marriage and the Family 63 (2001): 1038-1051.

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