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Debby & Katie

Oh, Katie … your article today was so timely for me. I’ve been on a 21 day sugar detox and on day 18 I began cheating. I have family in town for a long weekend and there is bread, sugar, and all kinds of bad carbs around every corner. And I caved. I had dropped 9 lbs and this morning I weighed and had gained it all back, just by eating bread and sweets over the past 3 days. Ugh. I need to get it in my hard head that this isn’t just a diet, it’s a change in eating for LIFE. Thanks for your words today. I hope we can stay connected and encourage each other!

Debby

I’m here for you all the way! It’s so hard. I struggled so much in the beginning. Reach out when you are tempted and let’s see if I can help you make a different choice.
My friends just tease me now! I show up everywhere with vegetables. They are supportive though after they tease me. I tell them my life depended on this change! So does yours and so many others.
Good luck Debby!

It’s Long Past Time to Portray Fathers as Leaders

Every year I dread the annual walk into the Father’s Day card aisle. I’m not the only woman who feels this way either. The aisle is loaded with cards about fathers who lay on the couch all day in a frantic search for the remote or spend hours every day fishing with their buddies. I stand there trapped as I look for a card for my husband, my ex-husband, my step-dad, my father in-law, my brother, and up until my Dad’s death in March, a card for him as well. Most of the cards don’t fit any of them or any Dad I know for that matter. There are always the gushy ones to choose from, but the ones with any humor mostly portray men as lazy and useless in the household.

I think back to my childhood and some of the shows that we watched back in the 1970’s – Little House on the Prairie, The Brady Bunch, Eight is Enough and The Walton’s. The fathers in those shows were portrayed as leaders of the family and they helped guide and shape their children. They treated their wives with respect and even though the male and female roles were more traditional in the 1970’s, couples worked together as co-leaders to run the household and help the children daily.

As time passed, and women continued to further their careers, television made a drastic switch and these older shows got replaced with sitcoms like The Cosby Show, The Simpson’s, Married with Children, and The Family Guy. These are all popular shows that ran for years and men are all portrayed as aloof and incapable of being a leader in the home. The American mindset slowly began shifting and believing that men are unable to handle multiple tasks and women are much more capable of handling work responsibilities and children than men can be. The media has been portraying it for years and Hallmark seems to support the notion as well. As a wife and a mother, I feel like we have to do all that we can to undo this mindset and teach our boys what a true Father is capable of.

Manners. Morals. Respect. Character. Common Sense. Trust. Patience. Class. Integrity. Love. These are just a few of the items that I believe fathers should list on what they are responsible for teaching their kids each day. Of course, women have the same responsibility but television and Hallmark already portray us as the ones capable of such tasks. It is the men that have been portrayed so poorly and they all don’t deserve it.

I know so many men that work all day and come home and handle all of the responsibilities of home just like their wives do. They are running kids all over town and participating in daily conversations with their children to help guide them down the right path. To all of those hard-working men, Happy Father’s Day (the card you get might not portray it as well as it should). To those men who look and act more like Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, watch those shows again and remember that they are only cartoons. Those children in those shows aren’t turning out well at all and the lack of a leader as a father plays a significant roll. That father doesn’t have to be the biological father because life doesn’t always turn out that way. That leader can be any man that is family, or a friend, who wants to take the time to show children that men can lead at work and at home. Men can teach them how to show feelings and provide nurturing in a time of need. The media and the card aisles aren’t going to help you here at all men. You have to show this leadership one day at a time until society gives you the credit you deserve.

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