New York, New York

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I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it
In Old New York

....I want to wake up, in a city that never sleeps....

Strike that last one. I didn't want to wake up, not after sleeping a brief fifteen hours total in the past four days. And, it wasn't exactly a city that never sleeps, as we had discovered the night before in our crazy cab ride around Lower Manhattan searching for night life. All we saw were bums, sketchy types, and cab drivers. Our crazy Moroccan cab driver was awesome, although my traveling companions had a death grip upon the oh-shit handles. He took us around and pointed out landmarks, and even stopped the meter at Macy's so we could take photos of the storefront windows, though he recommended we come back during the day when the music and animation was on.
What a journey it was! None of us wanted to sleep but finally we had to, collapsing on our beds, visual images still flooding our brains and last night's makeup still on our faces. We wanted to soak up as much of New York City as we could in our brief stay in MidManhattan, a gift from our employer. And what a gold, glittering gift it was.
A month ago, our employer, the veterinarian who owned the EC where we work, gave the option as a holiday bonus to take an all expense trip to NYC versus the cash equivalent. The vote was cast, but majority voted the cash option. Mysteriously my vote disappeared, and then it was announced that all who wanted to go to New York would go, and Scarlett, my employer, added me on at the last minute for a trip for six to go.
I wanted to feel excited our journey, but with my cash flow dwindling, Christmas approaching, and the reproachment of others, I was starting to wonder about my choice. I was told a few times over the past week that it was stupid not to take the money, that it wasn't worth giving up the money for. I had finally lost my temper with one of the more vocal naysayers the night before, finally telling her through my gritted teeth to quit making value judgements for me.
Perhaps I might change my mind at a later date (especially since I am losing the rat race, it appears) but I value adventure and experience over monetary compensation. This has been true of me for some time, I see, when I look at some patterns throughout my life. I could be a reason I am where I am professionally, romantically, and domestically. I also know if I took the money option, I would spend very little of it on myself. It would go instead towards presents for other people and getting ahead on bills. I have not taken a vacation from work since last year's trip to see my husband on leave from the military, and had not taken a break from family life since perhaps my last veterinary conference two years ago. I had almost forgotten who I was outside of home and work. I had always wanted to see New York City, a place I might have wanted to go to school if I had chosen to study literature instead of science, a place where my heroes, such as Jack Kerouac and John Lennon, spent critical time pursuing their art, a place of dreamers and poets and artists; in other words, those that appeal to my romantic side. I might never have spent the money on a trip like this, especially not the way we did it, if it was up to me, though, because it would feel selfish. I wasn't sure up until the moment of the trip if I was going to end up regretting it.
The moment I stepped on to the plane, however, I brushed aside any notion of regret and decided it was worth it, even just for this: to sit in the bulkhead seat in first class, on my way to New York. I have only traveled first class once when my friend's mom paid for her and I to go to Colorado for spring break. I am too cost-conscious to do it myself. When we arrived at JFK, there was a limo waiting to drive us to our four-star, world famous hotel in the middle of Manhattan. That afternoon, while strolling down up Broadway, down Fifth Avenue, an oft-repeated refrain between my traveling companions and I was "This is so worth it!"
And what marvelous traveling companions to have! There was Cendra, the Prettiest; Misty, the Smartest; and Christina, the Coolest, in addition to Scarlett and her partner, Stacey, who had planned and paid for the entire trip. Misty's enthusiam was infectious, and I remember the shining excitement in her eyes as she took in the amazing lights, the holiday decorations along the storefronts, the lights of Times Square, the tree in Rockefeller Center. She was like a kid in a candy store who had just been told she could buy anything she wanted. Cendra was a fantastic companion for geocaching adventures both in Central Park and on the New York street, where we found a micro-cache attached to a piece of the Berlin Wall. Christina made friends with everyone and drew from them pieces of their lives, little nuggets of what it was like to live and breath in the Big Apple. Scarlett and Stacey were our tour guides and financiers, buying us slices of pizza, roasted chestnuts, cannolinis, and hot coffee as we browsed the vendors and took in the scenery.
I had adopted the role of the navigator and planner, who developed the rough drafts of where we should go and offered it as suggestions, then led the charge to the appropriate cross street and subway station. After some confusion near the end of the trip, where I had lost my bearings on the subway while trying to lead us to a famous pizza joint in Little Italy, I told them I was henceforth retiring from navigating, and after that our expedition became a little more confusing, but I kept resisting the urge to jump in because my sleep deprivation was causing the information in my mind to get jumpled up, so my companions had to resort to asking NYPD which direction we needed to head in.
The first afternoon, we had walked up Broadway to Central Park. We checked out The Dairy, the statues, the ice skating, the horse drawn carriages, and Scarlett filmed me finding a geocache, where I left a travel bug near and dear to my heart. It was starting to get dark and Christina's feet were killing her in her boots, so we did not walk to the upper west end of the park to check out Strawberry Fields, although I cannot wait to go back to check out that tribute to Lennon, as well as take a look at The Dakota where he was shot. We were drawn across the park, though, by some glittering lights, which turned out to be Tavern on The Green, all decked out for the holiday season. After that, we ended up in Columbus Circle. It was dark outside, and all around us were vendors selling holiday wares. I especially liked the vendor who was trying to talk Cendra into buying a painting about "chaos and order, and how they go hand in hand" for $125, "but I'll give it to you for $100". She politely turned him down, and we found the rest of our group as I was purchasing a small photo of New York, pre 9/11, Twin Towers still intact.
We strolled down Fifth Avenue right as the lights came across the front of Cartier's, and giant jewelry boxes came sliding down the front of the store to the beat of Christmas music. Everywhere there were lights twinkling and snowflakes moving across buildings, music and cabs and people walking. We ended up in Rockefeller Center, taking photos of the tree while Scarlett tried to convince us to go ice skating. We walked through Times Square on the way back to the hotel for "wardrobe and makeup" before heading to our Broadway show.
The show was exciting in the respect that we had great seats at a Broadway venue, but we had been a bit disappointed at the choice of play (SPAMALOT). I was less disappointed than most, being a Monty Python fan, but I found myself only smiling quietly instead of laughing out loud like Misty was next to me. I think I would have been more amused if the scenes were carried out just like the movie Holy Grail, but apparently I like my Python pure and undiluted.
After the show, we walked across the street to Carmine's for a fabulous Italian dinner. The food and wine were incredible and we couldn't get enough, but we were unable to finish all the chicken marsala, shrimp marinara penne, cheese ravoli, and calamari that we ordered. After this, we walked around Times Square a bit more, stopping at the Europa Cafe for coffee and dessert. Then we heaved our full bellies and tired feet back to the hotel, where we dropped off Scarlett and Stacey and ran outside for a nicotine break.
After a brief geocaching adventure, we hailed our cab, who gave us our Lower Manhattan at night tour, and then off to bed. In the morning, we had French pastries before heading off to the subway for sightseeing.
First stop: Empire State Building.
Cendra and I checked out the observatory while the other girls did some shopping. We met at the Macy's storefront to see the windows in action, then headed to SoHo and Little Italy for lunch at Lombardi's.
Our adventure ended that day with a stop at Ground Zero. We looked through the fence at the bulldozers and the rubble pile, and gazed at the memorial photos. By the time we made it over to the south side of the memorial, we had tears forming in our eyes. I stopped to read the "Timeline of Events" and the wet eyes became tears streaming down my face, thinking of the people who had died and those who would miss them, the effect that single day had on our national consciousness, the way New Yorkers must have felt. I remembered that day clearly, where I was and what I was doing when I heard of the first plane hitting, and moments later the second plane crashing into those towers. I went to find the other girls and initially found only Christina, weeping into the phone to her husband. We regrouped and somberly filed into the subway station to race back to our hotel.
I sat by myself in the subway as it raced towards 53rd street, clutching my metropass like a lifeline in my hands, until a blind beggar walked past, microphone in hand, singing to the crowd and pulling his stoic old sheperd on a pinch collar behind him. I started feeling empathic for the dog and that halted my emotional reverie. I wiped the last vestige of tears off my face, took a cleansing breath, and put my "game face" back on. In a jiffy we were back at the hotel, where our limo was waiting to take us back to JFK.
The ride back was stressful, weaving in and out of traffic. Christina was feeling sick from the motion, and we all turned our conversations back on work and going home. We were all exhausted and longed for hot showers and the comforts of home, but we all felt extremely grateful for our Christmas gift, the gift of this wonderful experience of the holiday season in Manhattan, a memory we would treasure forever. And the best news was we would still be getting a Christmas bonus after all when we returned!
Thanks so much to Scarlett, Stacey, and the staff of AEUCC for making this happen!

The Beatles - Let it Be

I've been thinking about this song. This video makes me nostalgic for a time I never experienced.

The Broke-Down Bible And Pineapple Debacle

It started innocently enough. It was late on a Saturday night. We had recently returned home from a family wedding and were just beginning to relax and unwind from the weekend's festivities and stress. I prepared a snack for my older son and I that we were finishing before sending him to bed. We were eating pasta salad, grapes, and pineapples out of a three sectioned purple Tupperware dish and talking about our day. I reached down for a piece of pineapple and the baby got all excited. He had tasted pineapple the day before, during the rehearsal dinner.

I had been in the buffet line during that time, and had spotted my husband allowing the baby to gum a piece of pineapple. Relatives were remarking how cute it was. He seemed to really enjoy it, although to me it seemed very dangerous. I hadn't offered him any myself because of that, but this night, as I brought the pineapple up to my lips, the baby reached for it. When I put it in my mouth and started to eat it, he got upset. "How mean!" said his dad. "How can you let him see it and not give him any?"

So I gave in. I held a piece of that soft, juicy fruit to his lips and watch him bear down in it with his gums. As I watched,I was thinking that it probably felt very good to teething gums. It was cold, soft, yet gave resistance to his nubs of teeth that threatened to break through the gums. As I was watching, I suddenly realized the piece of pineapple I was holding was significantly smaller than it had been. A sudden cold sweat broke across my brow as realization crowned. The missing piece was in the baby's mouth!

At the same time that thought dawned on me, I saw the baby's face grow red and heard him begin to choke. I leaned him over my leg and smacked his back, but nothing came out and he was having trouble getting air. My only thought was to get that piece out of his mouth now! I reached in with my crooked finger to fish it out, but only managed to push it further in.

His little body was nearly limp when I handed him to my husband, horror stricken, in the hopes that he could help. His instinct was the same as mine, which was to try to fish it out, but this time we knew we had mere seconds to pull it off, and when it didn't happen, he instead forced it further down, a move brought on by some dim memory of a family story of a little boy saved from such action.

Suddenly my baby began to breathe better. He cried a little, then smiled a little, then fell asleep. I held him in my arms and thanked God he was alive, but inside I was still panicked. My husband had dialed 911 during the middle of all this, but had hung up, and now they were on the phone. I wanted them to come out, I wanted them to tell me he was going to be okay. I feared that the pineapple piece had been pushed into his lungs and that it could become a larger complication. I asked for medical personnel to come check him out.

During the twenty five minutes we waited for the ambulance, my husband tried to reassure me he was fine. In some ways, he seemed better and more comfortable than he had been the past few days, during which time he had been battling a cold. His color was pale, though, and he seemed too calm, too sleepy. I was terribly worried and could not relax.

During this time, my older son was asking questions, because he had witnessed the whole thing and was very worried as well.

"You know what that was?" my husband asked him. "That was God. God was watching over him and said it was not his time to die."

But I was afraid God had other plans.

For months now, I have prayed to God about my baby. For years, really, if you think about the years preluding this, during which I prayed for a fat, happy baby just like this little fellow.

I wanted a baby like I had wanted nothing else in my life. When I lost a life inside me previously, it was God's strength and my faith that had gotten me through it. In fact, my faith in him was redeemed through that loss. I began to delve more deeply into scripture and what God wanted of us. One of the edicts sent down from Himself is to love no others before him.

In the months following the birth of my baby, I had prayed daily for my little one. I always thanked God for him, told God how much I loved this little boy, how I loved him more than anything in this world, and I would fervently request that God let me keep him. I was afraid I loved him so much it was a sin, and I would assure God in my prayers that I loved Him first. "I promise, God, I love you best, please let me hold on to this one, please let me be with him in this life, I promise I'll always love you more than him."

Sometimes it seems when I talk to others about the way I view God, they wonder why I envision such a vengeful God, a God that just might take a baby away from me out of jealousy because I loved him more. The truth is, it is not revenge that I am afraid of. I am more afraid of a test of faith, much like the test Job was put to.

You might not be reminscent of the story of Job. I am, having read it several times over in in order for extracting some kind of meaning out of it. I felt compelled to do this after the day my youngest dog "got religion". One Sunday morning when said dog was a puppy, I was sleeping in when I had the sudden realization that the door was ajar, the door that usually kept this puppy confined to my immediate supervision. I also realized that the house was suspiciously quiet. I walked down the hall to the living room, only to find the floor littered with various objects the puppy had been dissecting with his jowls. In the middle of this sea of jetsam rose a small table I kept in the living room, and on that table was my brand new Bible, laying open to the Book of Job.

This Bible had been a special gift from a couple of women in my bible study group. I was in need of a Bible and had admired the one that one of the women brought regularly. Upon joining the church two weeks prior, she and another girl presented me with the gift of same Bible. It was so beautiful; leatherbound, with gilded pages and my name engraved on the cover. Now it lay with torn pages and chew marks along the edges of the leather. I had to repair the page that it was lying upon to, a page that began the chapter, "Job is Restored" (Job 42:1-17).

The joke now is that every time I try to ask God what he wants me to learn from this book, I let the Bible fall to whatever page it will open to, and it always falls opn to this one spot. A person who looks for signs in life, as I do, might see that and take it as a sign. Or you could accept that maybe it just opens to that spot because the dog chewed it and now its spine is bent in that particular spot. I joke about it, but I read it anyway, just in case I am supposed to see something in the story that speaks to me.

There is a lot in the chapter, but the main idea, the story of Job, is this. One day Satan breezes by and is talking about having his way in the world when God points out Job to him, and remarks of his faith and character. When Satan comes back, boasting, God points out Job again and he and the Devil make a little wager. God urges Satan to test Job and see if he ever loses his faith in Him. So the devil gets to work, and soon Job is stripped of his wealth, his belongings, and his children. His faith perservered. So Satan went back and this time stripped him of his health, his dignity, his status in the community. At this point, three friends of Job's come and sit with him, and their discourse on God's powers makes up the majority in the chapter. Because Job passed the test, however, he was rewarded with twice as much as he started from.

I think about that. I wonder if God lets the Devil test our faith as well, by letting him remove those things from our lives that we care about. I also think we as humans, myself included, try to manipulate God's will through prayer, believing that simply because we want it, it may change God's plan for us; simply through his compassion, we shall be saved. To humble ourselves before our God means to let go of our designs for life, and accept what he has planned for us.

That is not to say we can't "vote" on it by putting in our request via prayer. God wants us to ask for the things we want, I have been told. I pray mostly when I am worried. Since the moment of conception, I have worried with the notion of losing this baby, and I have prayed about it ever since. This was my desperate fear, brought to light first in the concerns to my doctor about another miscarriage, then during the objections of my psychiatrist, who was concerned the medications I had been on could cause birth defects, and "the office would strongly recommend you have an abortion". There was no way they were going to get me to let go of this life inside me, this life I bonded with at the instant it was begun. I was worried about the possiblity of loss, the very real fear something might be drastically wrong with him, and when he was finally born, full of fight and fury, I marveled upon him and nearly began to cry tears of relief and thanksgiving to my God, who let me have him after all, very whole and vital. I felt like now the worry would be gone, now I could relax and just let myself love him.

Within a few hours, though, I realized that I was completely wrong. Just because he was brought into this world did not mean he was safe in it. The nurses took him down to the NICU to be evaluated for a strange grunting noise he was making. The grunting was inspiratory effort, and he was admitted to the NICU and never returned to his birthroom, where I lie waiting for someone to tell me what was going on.

In the middle of the night, a doctor came and sat by my bed, and informed me that they were very concerned, that there was fluid in his lungs, he was having trouble breathing, and they had him on an IV and in an oxygen chamber for the meantime. He told me that he hoped for the best outcome, but that a lot of it was up to him, up to this little baby. He said he would know a lot more about how he would fare in 48 hours, but that he could say for a fact that this precious little boy would not be leaving the hospital with me. When he left the room, I began to cry to myself silently in the dark, and began a dialogue with God in my head. It was the only thing I could do, praying.

I left the hospital alone a couple of days and a few more diagnoses later, and the next four days were a blur of driving back and forth to the hospital, bringing "liquid gold" for my little one (colostrum, pumped out in agony with no external stimulation to drive milk letdown), who was hooked up to various monitors, lines going every which way. My husband kept trying to assure me that God did not give us this little one just to take him away, but like last weekend, I was not so sure. Ultimately God decides what our fate is in this life, and how can we be so sure His plans do not include stripping us of this tender life? It is not as if no one ever loses a child.

During the dark moments of my faith, I think about my broke-down Bible. I think about the meaning of the Book of Job. I wonder if God has shown me the sign that my faith will be tested, and I have to accept that no matter what happens, it is in His hands. Why would this God, who let his only son die a terrible death at the hands of the Romans, let me keep my son? Perhaps he is only letting me have him now as leverage in the game of faith. If he took him, would I have the strength to remain faithful?

These thoughts ran through my mind as I held my sleeping baby across my chest in the ER that night, as I held on to his little hands during his chest x-ray, as I drove home through the quiet night after getting the all clear from the doctors, after coming home a couple of days later to the rasping and wheezing of his breath sounds, through the diagnosis from his doctor of RSV and bronchial inflammation, throughout each one of these days as I remember the slickness of that pineapple in his throat, and how we each are only inches away from death every day. Only faith gets us through.

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So I am watching an IFC movie called "the Truth About Men and Women", and it gets me thinking about spirituality and my personal belief system choices. In one scene, a couple brings home a girl to meet their friend, who is recently getting over a breakup. This girl is talking about quiet contemplation, meditating as a path towards enlightment. The male in the couple is skeptical and says "I don't like enlightment. It leads to mysticism, which leads to weird prejudices and such" (or something like this). I am trying to figure out why he would believe that mysticism leads to prejudices, because I would think it would lead to the opposite.
I know that I have read of these belief systems through my interest in New Age religion, both from the standpoint of a believer and a skeptic in my lifetime. I suppose in a way that would sum up my entire span of internal spiritual discourse- half believing, half skeptical- and it is because I possess both inclinations that I end up delving deeply into books exploring different belief systems, in order to come up with a religious truth that I can accept without questioning too much; or conversely, maybe that is the point. Maybe we should constantly be questioning our faith and that is acceptable, perhaps it is not a reflection of our reluctance to believe without proof. But I digress here.
I consult with Websters to make sure I am understanding the words completely.
enlighten: to give to the light of fact and knowledge to; to reveal truths to; to free from ignorance, prejudice, or superstition
enlightment: an enlighting or being enlightened
mysticism: 1) the doctrines or beliefs of mystics; specifically the doctrine that it is possible to achieve communion with God through contemplation 2) any doctrine that asserts the possiblity of obtaining an intuitive knowledge of spiritual truths through meditation 3) vague, obscure or confused thinking or belief.
In these terms, it would seem that the man was wrong, or perhaps he was being ironic, or sardonic. It is hard to say and any theory on that would just be a theory and not really worth looking into anyway.
What interests me is where those ideas fall in my personal belief system. When some people talk about enlightment, about meditation, about mysticism, it seems to be in regards to New Age religious beliefs. Even this character, in talking about it, made no mention of God. In fact, most New Age religion books do not mention God specifically. They sometimes refer to the ambiguous "Truth", and is that the same path or not? (After all, wasn't Jesus "the Way, the Truth, and the Light"?) According to Websters, though, the goal in comtemplating life's mysteries is to "achieve communion with God". Or is that just easier than saying "with a higher power, whichever you may call it"?
Sometimes being a mother gets in the way of my thinking process. I have to cut this post short to go feed the baby his lunch. But I want to explore this further, because it cuts right to the heart of what the quest for cosmic truth is about.

The Power of Prayer

My spiritual life lay dormant for a long time, but at one point in my recent past, I had a spiritual awakening and a deepening of my faith. When that occured, I found myself more concerned with walking a narrower path towards God. I began to pray more often, keeping an open commo line with the Keeper.
There is this particular issue I have been praying about for a couple of years. Lately I got upset with God that my prayers were not being answered quickly enough. I stopped praying for a few weeks.
That is when I started having the "minor freakouts". I felt like my life was out of my control.
One night I had this grand idea that the two were connected.
I came home and asked my husband to pray with me. I spoke the words, but asked him to join me in concentrating on it. I asked God to take some of the load off my shoulders, to reduce my feelings of overwhelming responsiblity, to help me cope with my stress and irritability in a more positive way.
Immediately things got better. I was less stressed. I noticed my husband making a concentrated effort to take the load off my shoulders. This helped me cope with the stress better. My act of speaking those words and having him concentrate with me had given him appreciation for what I was going through, and a choice to either help or hinder.
In a lot of ways, I think I am like Luke, who wrote the gospel. Luke was a medical doctor, and he wrestled with skepticism. His scientific mind wanted to analyze the prophecy of Jesus. But his faith accepted that some things we may never understand.
I think sometimes that prayer is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Buddhists don't pray to God, do they not reach nirvana? If you concentrate on something hard enough, you might be able to make it come true.
What's God got to do, gotta to do with it?

Everything I Need To Know About Relationships,I Learned From Dr Phil

1) Accept Responsiblity
2) Own Actions
3) Get Real
4) Purposeful Communication
5) Modeling Success
6) Have Integrity
7) Family Matters
8) Become Proactive
9) Be Authentic
10) Humor Helps

Explanations forthcoming.

Is Happiness overrated? I have this question because lately I have been having some minor "freakouts" (episodes of extreme sadness, crying jags, or angry outburts), maybe five or so in the last couple of weeks. It makes me wonder if I should call for help, but then I don't know who to schedule an appointment with: my doctor, who wants to diagnose every complaint I have as "allergies", my psychiatrist, who wants to put me on drugs every time I walk in the door, or my therapist(s), who feels like someone I am paying to be my friend. My best friend says I am fine and it is just a combination of lack of sleep, stress, feeling overwhelmed with responsibility at home, etc etc. I wonder if some of it is not caused by the drop in hormones at this many months post partum. I wonder this because the same elements are there that have been there the five months since my baby was born, only they are just now causing this reaction. I have been dealing with the same things all along; why would they just now begin to get to me?
I am trying to remember to take the fish oil, which seemed to help so much with "balancing my mood" during my pregnancy, during a time where I really could have been depressed with some of the things I was dealing with, but wasn't. Exercise seems to help substantially. However, I feel like I am having a very hard time dealing with my stress level lately and feel the urge to start smoking again very strongly. It was not as hard as I thought to quit, and for months now I haven't thought about it at all, and even felt disgust when I saw other people doing it, but lately every day I have been thinking about it. Is there a Nicotine Anonymous club? Because I would so go to that. I feel like I need a 'phone-a-friend' to talk me out of it and help me resist the urge.
I want to elaborate on my feelings about the overmedicating of America by the psych industry, and my various medication misadventures, but instead I think I should clean the kitchen. My husband is probably frustrated by now by the fact that I spend more time on the computer than I do doing housework (but then again he does none of the housework himself...well that is a whole different issue, watch for further posts about the women's lib movement biting us women in the ass)

I am working out this new theory in my mind about relationships. Some of the psychology out there today in regards to relationships suggests that we have a subconscious tendency to act like our same sex parent in the constucts of a marriage (or long-term partnership). Women will inadvertently try to recreate their mother's role in a marriage, and men will act like their fathers. Your parents provide the models for the biggest role in your life. If you think about it, in terms of "nature versus nurture", learning how to behave in a relationship towards the opposite sex is a huge part of our environment as a child. This remains true whether your parental unit stayed intact or not, and without a conscious effort to not act like your same sex parent (for instance, if you are aware enough to recognize the way your same sex parent acted and made a deliberate choice not to behave that way due to the consequences of those actions), one naturally slides into the role that the same sex parent modeled to them.
So supposing that it is true, that over time in a relationship, women tend to model the behavior of their mother and men model the behavior of their father, then my theory is in order to fully determine compatability with another person, you need to determine if that person's same sex parent would have gotten along with, or been able to meet the needs of, your same sex parent. Simply put, if you are a woman, you would want to introduce your mother to his father, and if you can assess that they would have made a good combination, you have a high chance of making it work between you.
A man learns how to love a woman from watching his father love women. In a stable marriage, he would learn how to treat his wife from how his father treats his mother. If the parental unit dissolved and his father loved a series of women, or perhaps none at all, a man learns from that as well. When he becomes mature, he can make the conscious decision to not act like his father, but without assessing this and making this choice, he subconsciously displays the learned behavior in relationship to how he treats a woman. So single women, I advise you to educate yourself about the father of the man you are seeing to determine what kind of relationship influence he provided, and also ask the man you are seeing how he felt about the way his father treated women, to determine if he has thought it through and made any decision about whether it was something to aspire to or not.
Whether we want them to or not, our parents set the relationship stage for us. If you want to determine how the play is going to turn out, analyze the role that each same sex parent played on that stage. Then choose your mate carefully with this in mind.
I picture asking my mother to dance with his father, and then watching to see if they laugh together.