Cohabitation: How to Cut Down the Shack Up Craze

I pointed out in another blog that people choose to cohabit, shack up or live together without marriage for one of three big reasons: (1) They have an attitude that says "Marriage is only a piece of paper”; (2) they think that living together is a "test drive" for marriage; (3) they are afraid that marriage may reduce their welfare or social security check.

But there is a blunt reason for widespread cohabitation in our society: Boys and men love free sex; girls and women let them have it. That’s it.

If women want men to commit to marriage, then women must withhold sex from men until men marry women. Does it make any sense to you, dear lady, that the typical guy will want to reward you for something he can get for free?

As a certified male, I guarantee you that every man worth his manhood will do anything, short of taking his own life or going to jail, to obtain sex with the woman he loves. He will even pay a huge amount of money for sex. Hey, why do you think men pay female prostitutes, and not vice versa? It’s the same reason why men are the #1 subscribers to Play Boy magazine. Men love sex, and they’re willing to pay the cost.

The really awkward thing is that ever since women got “liberated”, more and more of them are putting the aggressive moves on men to have sex with them. What, you offer a guy sex so he can commit to marrying you? Are you kidding me? Yep, he may marry you, but you’ve given him a long rope, and the guy is more likely to play delay tactics after he’s seen your nakedness, or played you.

Here is the quickest way to get any serious guy to marry a serious woman. The woman should say something like this…

“You say you love me, right? You say I’m beautiful, right? And you say I’m special, right? And you say you’ll do anything for me, right? Well, my dear, if all that is true, then don’t I deserve something as simple and special as a marriage license. I consider sex and my body something very special, and I just can’t give it away to anyone. I must keep this treasure for that special someone who will respect me enough not to think of getting me free of charge. Are you that special person or not? If you really love me, you will wait until we are married before I can give you my body, sex and all.”

And, man, you think of it this way. To go into business, you need a business license. To enroll in school, you need an ID card, a registration, or some kind of paper work. To drive a car, you need a driver’s license. In the school my kids attend, to play sports you need to take a physical, with written results turned in to the coach.

Now, do you consider a woman or marriage less important than a business, than school, than driving a car, or playing sports? If you shouldn’t drive without a license, does it not make sense to you that you need a license to have sex with a woman? Hey, man, a marriage license is really your sex license.

On that point, when a police stops a driver, the cop walks over to the driver and says, “May I have your driver’s license, please?” Won’t it be really interesting if every time you were seen or cut having sex, the police came over and say, “Show me your sex license?” Can you imagine so many couples not able to produce the license? Can you see them in a hurry putting their pants back on and fleeing the sex scene?

Women, there is no sex police. Why not play that role to help the boys out some?

My point is this: when women stop giving men free sex outside of marriage, we will begin to see a greater number of men committing to marry their ladies. Then there will be more marriages with lots of responsible sex to follow.

But will that reduce the rate of divorce? Well, that’s a whole different can of worms.

Cohabitation: Shack Up to Break Up?

Cohabitation is just a big word for shacking up, which is two people living together before marriage or instead of marriage. It is like being husband and wife but without the wedding ceremony, without the marriage license. Shacking up is as close to a free ride as you can get in the arena of sexual relationships.

People who take the "shack up" path convince themselves that cohabitation is better to their relationship than marriage. Here are some reasons why people shack up:

1. The attitude that says "Marriage is only a piece of paper". This was the overriding attitude of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. Those with this attitude seek to avoid marriage, because they somehow despise marriage, especially for the expectations that come with marriage.
   
2. Living together is a "test drive" for marriage. The cohabiting couple mistakenly believe that if they shack up before they get married, they will improve the chances of their marriage succeeding. That's what they think until they get hit with the facts that cohabiting will actually endanger their success in marriage. Research shows that five to seven years of shacking up point to the following reality: 39% chance that the couple will break up; 40% chance that you'll marry the person, with up to 80% chance that the marriage will end in divorce; 21% chance that you will continue to shack up with the person and keep delaying marriage. Shacking up becomes a game of chicken, a cop out from saying "I do".Fear of marriage. Why would a couple be afraid to marry? One reason may be that they saw their parents divorce and they want no part of such breakups. Cohabitation becomes the safer option to avoid the sense of failure that divorce brings.
3. Negative effect on income. I have spoken with cohabiting couples who said getting married would mean a pay cut. Say what? Yes, they actually say, "If we get married, the government will reduce the Social Security check." If that is true, then the tax laws of the United States need to change to favor marriage rather than discourage it. However, resisting marriage because your income may go down reveals a screwed up sense of priority that clearly rates money as more important than marriage or love. How can you say, "I love you enough to die for you", if you are not willing to pay the easier price of less money?
   

All in all, if you choose to shack up, you set yourself up to break up. And if you don't break up, you still pay the social price of less respect from people who know you are shacking up. And you know too that you deserve less respect for not doing "the right thing", the responsible thing ~ get married!

Cohabitation: Shack Up to Break Up?

Cohabitation is just a big word for shacking up, which is two people living together before marriage or instead of marriage. It is like being husband and wife but without the wedding ceremony, without the marriage license. Shacking up is as close to a free ride as you can get in the arena of sexual relationships.

People who take the "shack up" path convince themselves that cohabitation is better to their relationship than marriage. Here are some reasons why people shack up:

1. The attitude that says "Marriage is only a piece of paper". This was the overriding attitude of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. Those with this attitude seek to avoid marriage, because they somehow despise marriage, especially for the expectations that come with marriage.
   
2. Living together is a "test drive" for marriage. The cohabiting couple mistakenly believe that if they shack up before they get married, they will improve the chances of their marriage succeeding. That's what they think until they get hit with the facts that cohabiting will actually endanger their success in marriage. Research shows that five to seven years of shacking up point to the following reality: 39% chance that the couple will break up; 40% chance that you'll marry the person, with up to 80% chance that the marriage will end in divorce; 21% chance that you will continue to shack up with the person and keep delaying marriage. Shacking up becomes a game of chicken, a cop out from saying "I do".Fear of marriage. Why would a couple be afraid to marry? One reason may be that they saw their parents divorce and they want no part of such breakups. Cohabitation becomes the safer option to avoid the sense of failure that divorce brings.
3. Negative effect on income. I have spoken with cohabiting couples who said getting married would mean a pay cut. Say what? Yes, they actually say, "If we get married, the government will reduce the Social Security check." If that is true, then the tax laws of the United States need to change to favor marriage rather than discourage it. However, resisting marriage because your income may go down reveals a screwed up sense of priority that clearly rates money as more important than marriage or love. How can you say, "I love you enough to die for you", if you are not willing to pay the easier price of less money?
   

All in all, if you choose to shack up, you set yourself up to break up. And if you don't break up, you still pay the social price of less respect from people who know you are shacking up. And you know too that you deserve less respect for not doing "the right thing", the responsible thing ~ get married!

Grandpa Mows Lawn, Grandkid Plays Golf on Lawn

Just the other day, I was driving by a home near ours when I saw a troubling sight. Here was this elder man, a grandfather pushing a lawn mow in the summer sun. Some yards away from him was a stout young man, the man's grandson, hitting golf balls. Obviously, neither the granddad nor the grandson saw anything wrong with this picture.

Something tells me something is seriously wrong with a lawn-mowing grandfather and a golfing grandson on the same lawn at the same time. That boy should have been pushing that lawn mow, and that grandfather should have required him to.

It is this sort of child-rearing or child neglect that is eating away at the work ethic of the younger generation. In God's name, what sense does it make to feed, shelter, clothe, and provide every necessity for a teenage boy, and then let him play ball while you mow the lawn around him and his golf balls?

By the way, Grandpa bought the golf club and golf balls too. Later, that grandson of his will probably expect Grandpa, even ask Grandpa to buy him a golf cart, that little vehicle golfers ride around in.

What's the underlined social problem here? It's the lack of authentic manhood, gold ole masculinity. I wager that this grandfather was a spoiler of his own kids before he became the same to his grandson. He may well think he's loving that young man the best he can, but Grandpa forgets that he won't always be around to pamper that young brat. And when life later begins to kick the little guy's soft butt and callous-free hands in the real, he'll have no clue what hit him in the rear end, what he missed out on while growing up.

Seemingly, that teenager has no father to teach him work ethic, which means getting him to work as an ethical way to live. Now, his one and only hope, Grandpa, is failing to show him how to work like a man.

There goes another masculine disaster just waiting to happen! Before you know it, the boy may flung school, drop out of the school or quit after high school, get into crime or drugs. And you know where that road leads: straight to jail.

Daughter Mows Lawn, Son Fries Eggs

Strange morning it was on Monday, July 21, 2008. Earlier that morning, our son asked, “Dad, can I fry eggs for breakfast?” At first, I said, “No, you don’t have enough time before your football camp.” Then I realized the camp would start an hour later than I remembered.

“Yes, you may fry some eggs,” I gave him the green light.

That same morning, our 14-year-old daughter got my attention with this strange request: “Can I mow the lawn?”

“Hahn?” I asked … shocked.

She seemed serious. “I want to mow the lawn to get paid $10.”

“Why does she want to fool with the lawn mower?” I asked mentally. “She got paid $50 a couple of weeks ago for typing my 164-page Liberian war journal. And now she wants to risk ripping into her legs with a lawn mow in the name of 10 bucks?”

Certain that there was no way this muscle-challenge young lady would survive that Craft lawn mower, I followed her behind the house to go through the motions in order to prove one point: This is NOT a girl’s job!

“OK. First, this is how you pull the lawn mower out of the shed. It’s kind of heavy. Second, you check the gasoline tank to see if it needs gas. Third, you check the engine oil level. Then you prime it about 5 times to get some gas to the engine. Now, you pull and hold this handle; push this part to the Start position; and you pull on the rope with some real force.”

I started the machine only to shut it off. She took over and got several weak pulls and false starts. I thought it was only fair to coach her some more, just to remove all doubts that I had given her a fair shot like I would have done with her brother.

“Left foot in front; right foot behind; bend forward a little; then lean back as you pull on the rope to get the engine going. Once it’s running, you push this one to the Throttle position, and you’re ready to mow!”

Daneto stepped up again. After a few more false starts, she had that thing roaring, then humming. With that, I left my daughter on the lawn and re-entered the house, expecting the girl to turn her back on the lawn mower and join me in the house any time soon.

“She’ll find out that pushing a lawn mower is a boy’s job,” I told myself.

Finally, I shouted one more command, “Keep your feet away from the blades at all costs.”

The last thing I wanted was the blade slicing into that girl’s sneakers.

“Boy what would her mom think of me, if she were to come home from work and see her daughter injured by the lawn mow? Well, dear, she insisted on cutting the lawn for money!”

In about 20 minutes later that girl had mowed along the sides of the house and the entire backyard, except for a strip of grass along our neighbor’s fence.

Meanwhile, Tojyea (T), our son did a good job too, frying those eggs. But somehow I wished he were the one behind the lawn mower and his teenage sister in the kitchen working those eggs.

Did I say my son CAN mow the lawn too? OK, yes, he does mow the lawn, and every time he does, he gets paid … you guessed it … $10.

Feminine Sons: Daughters to the Rescue

It takes strong men to defend a nation, especially in times of war. Preparing for war is more than stockpiling weapons; it includes raising boys to be boys.

We need to learn from our friends in the Muslim world; they train their boys to be brave, militant. I’m not talking about Muslim extremists or Islamic terrorists; I’m speaking of regular Muslims. They still believe that boys should be strong, brave, warlike, even war-ready.

On the other hand, some Western societies seem to be doing everything to tame their sons, so they can be “sensitive” like little girls. Need I mention that some of the boys are being “groomed” to become the wives of other men in same-sex marriages? (I know, some will call me homophobic.)

We will have to choose between our survival and being political correct.

The scary truth is, if America were to be dragged into another prolonged truly global war, like World War I and World War II, our population may no longer be able to stomach the sheer force it might require to win such a war. Why not? Because so many American men have become feminized, that’s why. The society as a whole can hardly stand seeing war casualties in the tens of thousands. We’ve seen the evidence from the Iraq war. Americans grew very nervous as the body count climbed, and CNN liked to tally the body bags. Millions of Americans began to call for an end to the Iraq War.

In another global war, with various nations lined up on either side, the camp that has the guts to stomach a higher number of war-dead will be favored to win such a war. And the side whose citizens cringe from the site of bombings, blood and deformed bodies may well become conquered territory.

Unless, Americans reverse how we bring up our boys, I’m afraid we may be digging our own graves by turning our sons into daughters. If we continue down the road of feminizing our sons, our daughters will have no brothers strong enough, tough enough to take up for them, to fight for them, to defend them. Or perhaps luck may have it that while we tame our boys into girls, we may also succeed in turning our girls into what we used to call boys.

There is some of that going on too ~ I mean making boys out of girls. The other day, on national TV, a mother was shown pleading for her daughter who wants to play football with the boys. That little girl sounded so confident, she could easily pass for a brave, little boy. This, in a culture, where some boys are taking the tryout to become cheerleaders! Could it be that it will take our daughters, sisters, and mothers to save us, after all? It’s like the return of Joan of Arc. Hey, I suppose girly men won’t mind being rescued by manly women.

Men and Suicide: The Suicidal Gender

On a personal level, every instance of suicide I know of was committed by a man. Suicide is primarily a male problem; women who commit suicide are trying to imitate men at men's worst.

According to suicide.org, out of a total of 32,637 suicides in 2005, men committed 25,907 of those suicides. That figure represented 79% of suicides for that year. By comparison, women committed 6,730 suicides or about 21% of suicides in 2005.

When it comes to suicide by ethnicity, white men are more notorious for killing themselves than men of other ethnic groups. For example, in 2005, white men committed 23,478 of the 25,907 male suicides. For their part, black men committed 1,621 suicides, while other non-white men committed 808 suicides, for a total of 2,429 suicides by non-white men.

Though more women than men attempt suicide, most suicide attempts by women fail, while men succeed in most their attempts. So men are better at killing themselves than women are. But the women continue to catch up. They may be jealous that we hold this record. It seems like our sisters want equal opportunity in the suicide department too. It seems like women, in their liberated effort to be just like men, have followed the examples of men in taking their own lives as men do.

So it comes down to men again, setting a bad example for the women and children in our society. Consider the flip side: if rampant suicides among men have led to more suicides among women, then it may follow that fewer suicides by may lead to fewer suicide attempts by women.

It is shameful for us to be known as the suicidal gender, but we can change that. So men, why don't we set an example for life?

Dumb Boys Equal Low Math Scores

You've probably heard by now that in Mathematics and Science, America ranks average or near the bottom of many developed nations. In 2006, students from 30 countries took the International Student Assessment offered by PISA (the Program for International Student Assessment), which is a project of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

For those who want to see America remain the leader of the civilized world, the outcome of the tests was troubling. The United States has been losing ground to other countries in math and science. Students in 23 of the 30 countries scored higher than the USA; America ranked in the bottom 7. On the science portion of the tests, students from the US scored 11 points below the average score of the 30 countries. Students in Finland ranked #1; they earned the top scores in both math and science.

Quoting a Washington Post story, the test "results underscore concerns that too few U.S. students are prepared to become engineers, scientists and physicians, and that the country might lose ground to competitors."

That's serious stuff, but the test results should not surprise us if we have been paying attention to what American culture has been doing to our boys over the past 30 years.

Think of it this way: math and science have been subjects in which males do well. But boys don't score high in math and science simply because they are boys. They make higher math and science grades only when they are smart boys. The dumber our boys become or the stupider they think they are, the poorer they'll do in math and science. How we program boys can enable or disable the math-science regions of their brains! That may not be scientifically correct, but the something has happened to how we raise boys in America, something that has helped to lowering the math and science scores.

There seems to be a link between those low math and science scores, and how American culture and politics have dumbed down of boys for about three decades. Need we mention that male bashing that has become a normal part of American culture?

Let's face it: Dumb guys = low scores in math and science. And in practical terms, that equals fewer American-born engineers, scientists and physicians. Want proof? Visit a hospital or clinic in America. See all those foreign-born doctors? That's just one implication of dumb American male students who flunk science.

Do we want American students to catch up with or outperform the rest of the civilized world in math and science? Hiring qualified math and science teachers will help somewhat. But if we want to get to the root of the problem, we must start by getting our boys to believe once again that boys and men are smart, that that young men don't only have brute strength for football, basketball, boxing and wrestling, but that guys also have brains that actually work. We must do something to teach our boys that men are not the likes of Patrick on Sponge Bob, that our sons can still become engineers and scientists and doctors in rising numbers.

We can reverse the trend, but we must have the courage to deal with the root of the problem, not the fruit and symptoms of it. Could it be that raising our sons UP instead of down might actually raise America's math and science scores up as well? It just might. There may be a connection there.

Sponge Bob Men

I can't be the only one who's bothered by this. How come in America the male is often portrayed in the media as a buffoon, dumb, too arrogant to ask for directions, as a flat-headed idiot? And this has been going on for around 30 years or so. I know many of the shows that paint guys as stupid were/are comedy or sitcoms, but why should it be guys that get the foul end of the fun stick?

I'm really not a big television or movie guy, so I'll only list just a handful that I actually watched at some point:

• The sitcom Good Times on CBS television (February 1974 to August 1979)
• The sitcom The Jeffersons on CBS television (January 1975 through June 1985)
• The sitcom Family Matters first on ABC television (September 1989 to May 1997), and later on CBS (September 1997 to July 1998)
• The sitcom Sanford & Son on NBC television (January 1972 to March 1977)
• The movie Dumb & Dumber (released in 1994)
• The sitcom Married With Children on Fox television (April 1987 to June 1997)
  
• The animated television series Sponge Bob Square Pants, which first aired on May 1, 1999 and premiered on July 17, 1999. Can you believe this is the most watched show on Nickelodeon's Nicktoons? By the way, since Sponge Bob is aimed at children, Sponge Bob may brainwash our little ones that boys are the dumb ones of the human species. Well, if boys are stupid, guess who's smart. Girls, of course!
• The animated sitcom The Simpsons on Fox (debut December 1987 and still running). It holds the double record as the longest-running American sitcom and animated program. The Simpsons Movie based on the sitcom has made over $526 million since it was released in July 2007. Stupid pays! And if stupid pays so well, why try smart?
  

Not just sitcoms and movies. Watch the news on TV, and you will find that male news anchors who co-host with female news anchors usually come across as less smart and timid, while the women journalists continue to exude airs of brilliance and confidence. Wow!

With all these years of our culture painting men as stupid, wishy-washy, and weak, is it any wonder that more and more men now fit the bill? Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy: believe that guys are stupid; say guys are stupid; say it over and over; say it in so many ways, and it sticks; it comes true.

To prove that boys are opting for stupid over smart, more boys than girls are dropping out of school. Fewer guys than girls graduate from high school and move on to college. Girls are doing better in school than boys. In our family, my school-age daughter makes better grades than my son, though he's been catching up. And I know my boy is intelligent, but it seems he believes that good grades are a girlish thing, and he doesn't want female grades.

Chew on this: When was the last time you saw a male valedictorian at a high school graduation ceremony? Yes, it still happens, but it's getting to be rare these days, unless the boy is from India, China, Finland or somewhere outside of the United States. At the last graduation I attended in May 2008, both valedictorians were girls. The girls are certainly doing better in school than the boys.

Why should we be surprised that men for the most part have lost the skill and will to lead? If men are as dumb and weak as they have been portrayed in the media all these years, then it makes perfect sense that men have hugged the stereotype. They are gladly living down to the expectation of being Sponge Bob men.

Who is a Genesis Man?

Genesis. It's the name of the first book of the #1 best seller of all time: the Bible.

Genesis. Do you notice the word "gene" in there? And from that word, we build words like "generate", "generator", "generation", "genetic", "regeneration", and of course "genesis".

If you care to know, the dictionary defines "gene" as "the basic physical unit of heredity; a linear sequence of nucleotides along a segment of DNA that provides the coded instructions for synthesis of RNA, which, when translated into protein, leads to the expression of hereditary character." Wow! What a mouthful!

In plain speech, that mumble jumble says that a gene is the code of life that we received from our parents before we were born. Our genes are our unbroken link to our ancestors.

Genes are to life what the alphabet is to language. In the English language, paragraphs come from sentences. Sentences come from words. And words come from letters. That says the letter is the origin or source of a paragraph, of a sentence, and of language.

And guess what "genesis" means: origin, beginning.

The "Genesis Man" is therefore the original man. The Genesis Man is the man who so cares to discover or rediscover himself that he will go back to the beginning to find what he lost and where he lost it, to find himself as he was made and meant to be. The Genesis Man realizes something is missing; he instinctively knows that society has stolen something valuable from him. The Genesis Man longs for the Creator's blueprint and design for his life as a male.

Oh, let's define that simple word "man". It comes from the Hebrew word "adamah", and it means "clay" or "dust".

This brings us to two important truths about the Genesis Man. On one hand, he is as special as the Creator's original (gene). On the other hand, he is as fragile as clay and as limited as dust. Thus, the Genesis Man can only reach his full potential to the extent that he is connected to the Divine, to his Designer, to his Creator and Maker.

Briefly put, the Genesis Man is a man of the God of Genesis. He is a man who refuses to stop at nothing less than a man-God connection, for in that link is found his manhood, his greatness. The Genesis Man is a man on a journey, on an expedition to find true manhood in all of its glory and splendor, as it was in the beginning, back in Genesis.

Man's Identity Before Man's Authority

“I’m a man. Respect me.” That seems to be a man's sigh, cry or shout.

There are few exceptions to the rule: A man is made for respect (as a woman is built for affection). Nothing offends and insults the average man like disrespect from a youth, from a woman or from another man. Every man wants respect.

A guy wants respects from peers, observers and total strangers, whether that man is at home, at school, on the battlefield, in a prison cell, in a group, in a gang, or in the workplace.

Often men will do anything to impose their authority to get the respect they think they must get at all costs. Is it any wonder that it was the male who discovered or invented the art of war? What is warfare but man’s attempt and effort to control his fellow man and thereby parade his power and prowess in order to win? During the era of empires and kingdoms, men climbed mountains, braved valleys, endured deserts and set sail across seas and oceans to attack and conquer foreign lands. Those war campaigns might have happened in the name of needed resources, slaves or resources, but to the male warriors the grand plunder of war was the grand prize of respect from the conquered.

On a much smaller scale, two boys fist fight to win respect from each other, as well as from other boys and girls who watch the fight or hear of its outcome. Respect is why boys bully, join gangs, wield guns, engage in certain risky behavior or even play sports.

Since we men need and crave respect to count our lives meaningful and worthwhile, one may think guys would be experts at knowing exactly how to get respect without issuing threats, blowing air, or inflicting harm. But the truth is few men have the foggiest idea about how to gain respect without anger, threat or force. A man may pursue respect by way of position, title, appearance (looks), or performance. Usually, that’s an empty chase.

For much of my adult life, I wanted to find the secret to attracting respect from others without much sweat, without directly asking for their respect. I realized that without respect, hardly anyone would take the time to listen to what I have to, or take me seriously enough to follow my advice, coaching, teaching or lead. After several years of coming up empty, I think I have stumbled upon the golden key that opens the mansion of respect. Here it is: authority. Specifically, a show of authority. Only authority figures get respect.

Underneath every man’s desire or demand for respect is the issue of authority. No man is respected until he is first regarded as an authority figure. Respect then is a fruit of authority, and authority is the root of respect.

The question for every respect-hungry man should be: How do I become an authority figure? The answer is: find your identity. Once you discover who you are, and you function as the person you are, you will “grow” authority and thereby gain respect.

“Who am I?” That’s the sixty-four million dollar question that each and every man needs to answer. The obvious answer is, “I’m a man.” But that’s obviously not enough. The generic answer is, “I am a leader.” But that’s only the beginning. Leader of what? Leader in what? What kind of leader. A man must find at least one leadership role. When others see you as a leader, they will begin to treat you as an authority figure. When that happens, you won’t need to starve or beg for respect anymore. Respect will hunt you down and overtake you.

Here is man’s path to fulfillment in its most simplistic form: Identity => Leadership => Authority => Respect.