Session Notes

via Californians for Population Stabilization.

In “Beyond Choice, Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century,” he has written eloquently about reproductive issues and addresses the importance of spacing between births:

Women face huge risks to their health from pregnancy and childbirth. The biggest killer of women over time has been childbirth. When women die, their children are more likely to die as well.

Women have evolved to minimize these risks by planning and spacing their children and by limiting the number of children they bear.

In simplest terms for today, allowing space between the births of children provides the mother time to recover from pregnancy and childbirth, with all its related hormonal and physical changes. For children, it allows for sufficient time to be devoted to their nurturing.

Apparently this information is lost on the Duggars, but science often is at odds with fundamentalist thinking.

In spite of the rabid insanity of the source and my total reticence towards the idea of doing anything to support them, someone had to say it. One correction though: the above last word, “Thinking,” probably never did apply…

When I look at my own children through the lens of the psychological training I have, I am continually reminded at how far I fall short of the full parenting I wish I could offer them — simply due to the time demands running a practice in the area of sexuality and relationships. We decided to stop having children at two because I knew that adding a third child would mean my parenting of all of them would meet my own training’s definition of, “Negligent parenting.” I most willingly walked into the office of a surgeon for a vasectomy because I love my two kids too much to deprive them of the kind of attention, love, guidance and care they deserve.

Parents who have more time to devote to parenting perhaps can handle more — but not too many more.

To multiply that number by 10, well, let’s not sugar coat it. You are no longer even offering negligent parenting — you are not offering parenting at all and children are being raised by children. The local genius squad almost always has an immediate rebuttal of course: “But, there are so many people out there who are being abused in so many families. They, on the other hand, all look happy, it’s all working and, if it looks fine and loving, then who are you to assess their alternate arrangements of family so just butt out.” Ya, except parenting isn’t a question of relativistic post-modernism, it’s a question of science and we have hundreds of years of studies of what does and doesn’t work — 20 kids to 2 parents = kids simply don’t get parented — and kids need parenting.

What stuns me is how few people have actually had the guts to stand up and say it though — to find such, we have to go out to the crazy fringe because everyone seems to be too afraid to cease being jello and admit that there really is such a thing as, “Stupid,” and there really is such a thing as, “Smart.”

Turning your vagina into a clown car, ya, that’s one that absolutely HAS to be called for the stupid category…

Via: democracynow.org

Dr. Maté’s work focuses on the centrality of early childhood experiences to the development of the brain, and how those experiences can impact everything from behavioral patterns to physical and mental illness. While the relationship between emotional stress and disease, and mental and physical health more broadly, is often considered controversial within medical orthodoxy, Dr. Maté argues too many doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption, that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness, addictions and disorders, and in their healing. [includes rush transcript]

All I have to add is: Thank you medical community — it’s SO about time!!!

via www.gizmag.com.

For some time now, it’s been one of those “well-known facts” that playing video games increases one’s hand-eye coordination… much to the consternation of parents and spouses trying to convince family members that their obsessive gaming has no redeeming value. Now, research conducted at the University of Rochester indicates that playing action video games also increases peoples’ ability to make right decisions faster. Ironically, an activity that involves sitting on the couch helps people to think on their feet.

Google’s expectation that certain employees have reached high level character development on World of Warcraft prior to becoming eligible for employment turns out to have been a pretty decent hunch…

I have no idea what the rest of the movie is about but the trailer gets my vote for movie of the year…

Steve McVey:

” If the spirit of Picasso rested within you, a great desire to paint would continually motivate you toward the canvass. The knowledge of who was within you would be all the motivation you needed. The good news of grace is that Jesus Christ is in you.”

This is a powerful visionary article on the way the J.C’s Spirit of grace/truth transforms us. May it be so for me, my family, friends, clients, and world.

Steve McVey:

“. If the world only understood the truth about the love of Father, so many more would come to Him in faith. Sadly, their understanding is often a distorted caricature of who He really is. One reason it is so important to understand and accept your Father’s love is because we all eventually become like the whatever we imagine God to be. People trapped in legalism see God as a judgmental, cosmic eye-in-the-sky who is watching and waiting for them to mess up in the way they live. They imagine that how they behave is what matters most to Him. Consequently, that’s the kind of person they become in the way they relate to other people. They become harsh parents, demanding friends, dictator-type pastors, etc. “

I pray we understand and accept God’s unconditional love for us/our family/friends/clients/world as well.

CBC News – Consumer Life – Giving kids braces earlier not always better:

“However, for children with Class II malocclusion, commonly referred to as an overbite or buck teeth, there is no advantage to starting early, according to Dr. William Proffit, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Dentistry in Chapel Hill.”

Overcoming A Bad Family Background – Grace Walk Ministries:::Sharing the Love & Life of Christ:

“Don’t be held captive by your past. It isn’t necessary to pretend your heritage is something other than what it really was, but you don’t have to be held back by it. When Jesus Christ gave you His life, His past became your past. You received a new heritage. The new you has been in Him since the foundation of the world. (See Ephesians 1:4) You aren’t who you used to be. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17) You aren’t the sum of your family’s past. You are who God made you to be – a divine work of art (see Ephesians 2:10), endowed with supernatural potential (see Philippians 4:13). In Christ, your future is as bright as the promises of God! Don’t allow yourself to be trapped by lies which suggest that you’ll never make it in life. You will make it because you have been delivered from your background. Your future hinges on the loving faithfulness of God and He can be trusted. The Psalmist wrote: ‘Your goodness is so great! You have stored up blessings for those who honor you. You have done so much for those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world!’ (Psalm 31:19) “

This is an inspiring article! I pray this article for us, our families, friends, schools, clients, and world.

Coolest Kid Birthday Party Printable Birthday Invitations:

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It’s All Him – Grace Walk Ministries:::Sharing the Love & Life of Christ:

“Have you ever noticed our tendency to push ourselves into the starring role of the stories told in the Bible? For instance, consider the story of ‘the good Samaritan.’ Most sermons I’ve ever heard about that text makes the main application be that ‘we shouldn’t be like the lawyer or the priest who passed by the wounded man without helping him. We should be like the good Samaritan.’ In reality, that’s not the meaning of the story. It’s not a moral lesson that the Bible is trying to teach us here. Through that story, Jesus was teaching us about Himself. The main lesson isn’t that we are to help the pitiful, helpless man. It’s that we are the pitiful, helpless man. Jesus is the Good Samaritan who found us after legalism and devout religion didn’t lift a finger to help us.”

I pray the Spirit teaches us that it is all about Jesus as Saviour and not us.