Subject: Re: Editorializing on poverty and parents From: msmithbe@iway1.iw.net Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 17:54:15 -0800

To: Rex Ballard 
In-Reply-To: 
X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17
Status: RO
X-Status: 

On Tue, 26 Dec 1995, Rex Ballard  
wrote:
>Actually, it wasn't.  I was paying them "Day Care" money, 
(snip)>take the tax deduction, and Jerry would go to jail 
(making me real 
>popular with my Ex).  I have to keep quiet.  Unless of 

So you made a choice.  A "nice guy" choice.  

>I hope your new husband shows that kind of love to you.

Barry writes me little love notes on scrap pieces of paper 
all the time.  His latest is "Top ten reasons why I love the 
Dixie girl".  

>When you propose solutions on the public forum,>do you 
reccomend that everyone go back to the farms?  

What I am talking about is rejection of an appearence-based 
society.  Does a baby need a $45 outfit?  Do I have to be 
ashamed my car has some rust?  Do I need $25 for toner, when 
I can use Witch hazel?  Do I need a job with a title or can 
I just be a clerk?  I was suffocated by having to answer for 
what I did for a living, where I lived, what I drove, what I 
wore, etc.  Our obsession with stuff is overwhelming and 
unnecessary! It lends itself to working long hours and we 
can't enjoy any of it!  

>If your first husband could earn a comfortable living, and 
still be home >with you 80 hours/week, wouldn't that be nice 

My first husband.  He beat me alot, so I guess, no.  

>what should men's >roles be?  What should their 
responsibilities be?  What should their >rights be?

The same as a woman's.  People should be able to fullfill 
the roles that they feel most comfortable with.  
Ideally, children of divorce should go with the parent who 
has been the most nurturing and attentive to their needs.  
It isn't enough to be the one who can provide for their 
monetary needs.  The nurturer should have the children 
physically most of the time and the provider liberal 
visitation.  50/50 arrangements are too hard on the 
children. Unfortunately, two problems arise: How do you 
prove which parent is the more nurturing?  Also, any plan 
one proposes is dependent on people being mature, 
responsible adults.  If they were that, they'd not be 
getting a divorce in the first place.
So the answer, then, to teach people do develop healthy 
relationships.  But if you've ever had any psychology, you 
realize that esteem is heavily dependent on a nurturing and 
healthy childhood.  No matter what is done in school and the 
media, the fact remains that according to most research 
esteem develops according to what happens in the home.  So 
which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  The healthy 
child that becomes a healthy adult or the healthy adult to 
raise the healthy child?

>The average man is responsible for 80% of the child support 

As I've stated before, I'm amazed at child support awards.  
It just doesn't take that much to raise a child.  Even 
assuming that the child will go to college the NCP should be 
able to bank that money and prove that it has been banked 
for the future.  I think $300 was reasonable, but I would 
have been happy with $100.  That's all I need to provide for 
clothing, school supplies, medical needs, and put some in an 
annuity for college.  If I had to pay child care, I'd need 
more, of course, but only until they were in school.  

The "feminist ideal family" has the father leaving by >the 
time the children are school-age so that mother can 
establish herself >in the workplace. 

As a feminist, I have to say I've never heard the idea that 
this is only the way it should be.  There are some radicals 
out there, but feminists subscribe to many different models: 
socio/biological, pscho/analyitical, social learning...there 
are many different schools of thought on gender.  The 
anthropological discussion (mainly socio/biological) on 
patriarchy and matriarchy isn't nearly as compelling as the 
discussions within psychological schools of thought on 
gender and related roles.  Socio/biologist schools of 
thought tend to ignore learning and conditioning.  And then 
there are the Sociologists.  They are too caught up with 
learning environment.  They completely ignore biology, which 
is wrong.  But I digress...
What I'm saying is that I don't doubt that you've run into 
that opinion.  I know it's out there.  I'm always amused by 
the opinions of those who have failed to provide themselves 
with a well-rounded liberal arts education and have instead 
concentrated on one area of social science OR WORSE: They've 
done a lot of "reading" on all the "studies" and 
"statistics" and haven't seriously studied any of the social 
sciences.  I'm speaking of radicals, not of you.  

>It probably wouldn't take much to get his consent.  
Especially since >you'll be paying the premiums.

My only way of contacting him is by calling his sister, who 
will call his brother, who will visit him. I'm not allowed 
to have his address or that of his brother. 

>In my situation, my ex would withold sex, I eventually 
witheld time. 

Well, I don't think you had a "home base".  It's a den where 
each can relax and have their needs met.  Not just the 
obvious needs, either.  My husband always has cold feet.  He 
knows that if he comes home, I'll sit on them and warm them. 

>It's beginning to make sense now.  He could impress all his 
male friends >because he married a stripper - 

Well, it sure didn't impress their wives.  Some of them 
still won't let their kids play with mine.  No, I wasn't a 
stripper. I was an underwriter's assistant.  Exciting, huh?

which proved he was a big "stud".  He was >willing to play 
the "responsible husband", but something changed (you 

I was a mother when he met me.  I had an 18-month-old, 
remember?  No, he wanted to take care of someone.  He saw me 
there, my fatherless son, and he wanted to be the big man 
guy.  He was always helping strangers.  Once I married him, 
though, he lost interest.  I was no longer a stranger in 
need.  He would leave me at home overnight with no vehicle, 
two kids, and nine months' pregnant, to go work on someone's 
car.  He's lecture a guy on how to treat his wife properly 
after he'd yelled at me (pregnant) for not helping him carry 
a console TV.  I think the stripper thing was so none of his 
friends would want me. Guys around here wouldn't date a 
woman who had been a stripper.  Worked, too.  

>Nearly every male is expected to work 40 hours/week.  Most 
females are >expected to work that much too.  It's part of 
being an adult.  

Only in the last couple hundred years has working meant long 
hours away from home.

There are >those who say that much of the divorce rate may 
have to do with the >possiblity that we have too much free 
time.  

Or more to the point, what we do with our free time.  I used 
to hate football, but I learned to like it because he loves 
to watch it and that way we can talk about it.  We cook 
together. Sure, we watch a lot of TV together, but we also 
do the grocery shopping together.  We even get our hair done 
together.  He's my bud.  

>Where did you meet him?  What was your life-style?  What 
did you like to >do together?  When you got pregnant, did 
you stop "partying"?

Touche.  I met my second husband at his work.  When we were 
dating went clubbing a lot.  I was renting a couple of rooms 
at my parent's house, (free babysitting for my baby).  We 
stopped going to nightclubs when we moved in together.  We 
didn't have any money to go clubbing with.  

>The background check is a good idea.  It's hard to do 
background checks >on guys you meet in bars.  

Plus, as Ann Landers says, if you meet someone in a bar, you 
meet someone who spends a substantial portion of their life 
drinking!

>I'm impressed.  

Thank you.

>> I know that now.  My 3rd husband is one of those "boring" 

I gave some very serious thought as to what decisions I had 
made in life to get me to where I was--on welfare (the first 
in my family to be thus) and three kids by two different 
husbands.  I didn't think any decent man would ever want me 
under those circumstances.  

>Congratulations.  I'm one of those "too nice" guys too.  
Most of us "nice >guys" are the ones who end up being paid 
up on our child support

My nice husband didn't want to cause trouble for his kids.  
He and his ex were separated, and he had them while she 
finished her stint in the army.  They had agreed that they 
would stay seperated so that she could send him a dependents 
allotment for the kids.  As her time ended he realized what 
might happen and so he tried to serve her with divorce 
papers.  She'd invoked the Soldiers and Sailors relief act. 
He used the dependent allotment to help pay for the two br 
apartment he and the kids had, and it ended abruptly after 
the kids went to stay with her for the summer.  Then she 
just kept them, and filed for divorce.  He lost his 
apartment.  He had to live in his mother's basement for a 
while.  On that basis she said the children should live with 
her, because he had lost his home.  I would have kicked and 
screamed and made an awful fuss, because I'm not so nice.  
But he is, and it happened to him. He has become much more 
assertive since he's known me.  I started doing boosting him 
the way I had boosted myself.  People used to take 
advantange of him something awful.   

>What would happen if women married "nice guys" the first 
time and left >the slimeballs to the hustlers? :-).

They'd complain about how bored they were, like my sister 
does.  People want what they haven't got.

>It sounds like he might do well in a "cottage industry 

The job that he loves the most, and is really good at, is 
one where he's around people all the time.  He managed a 
hotel at a resort once, and he loved it except that they 
started asking him to do things like mow the lawn.  Like any 
chronic "nice guy", he did.  Then he got another job because 
he hated what he had agreed to do.  He really wants to run 
his own restaurant.  His family has a history of running 
restaurants.  He's a great cook.  

>At least you offered.  It's too bad you can't offer him 
amnesty for back >child-support 

It would be my choice to pursue him.  He only owes the state 
of SD $600.  He owes ME over $13,000.  We will probably do 
the adoption thing.  He'll bitch and complain and make me 
out to be the bad guy, but I think he'll secretly be 
relieved.  My children will be Smiths.

possibility.  I let her>know I was a transvestite 

Well, there's part of your problem.  You have probably got 
some self-esteem issues you need to work on.  I know because 
I'm bisexual.  I always had this feeling of being seperate. 
 Of being apart.  I went through several years of feeling 
dirty.  I never told my first two husbands, and it's a good 
thing because they would have used it against me.  I was 
faithful to my husbands; I always have been.  
Sex is handball.  It's a pasttime. If you're lucky, you find 
someone you can live with and play handball with for the 
rest of your life, but sex isn't love and love isn't sex.  
You can be wildly attracted to people but that doesn't mean 
you have to nail them; most people dont' realize that, and  
don't find it out until they've hurt the ones who love them 
and themselves.  If you're raised with a Judeo-Christian 
attitude, everything that isn't missionary style male-female 
is ugly and deviant. Nobody wants to talk about sex without 
giggling.  Women have a big problem with accepting deviancy 
in their men and men hope their women are a little deviant 
and EVERYONE makes fun of masturbating. Oh, my.  I've gotten 
up on my soapbox again.  I'll get down now.

>so I proposed.  

Of couse you did, dear.  You were enslaved by someone who 
had accepted your quirks.

>My biggest problem in relationships is "letting go".  I 
bond with a woman 

Yes, that was for me, too.  Couldn't it be that you've 
merely found a good friend?  Just because the sex isn't 
there why can't there be a relationship?  Kind of a bisexual 
viewpoint, but everyone is potentially my lover and thus, 
everyone is potentially my friend.

>Both.  I have found that good girls can be very abusive in 
their >righteousness.  

You aren't going to meet a woman who's your "Bud" in church. 
 Church-going women take a dim view of cross-dressing.

>>More precisely, people want what they feel is available 
only to them. 

That makes sense, I suppose.  Got to go for now.  I've got 
influenza "A" and with my COPD I'm coughing up some pretty 
exotic-looking stuff.  TTYS,

Regards,

Misty Smith-Beringer
(See.  All feminists aren't bad.)
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.  -- Mark Twain



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