Search Results for: blog the harmful him vs her

Is There Such a Thing as Too Nice?

Is there such a thing as being too nice? When we’re in a relationship with someone, particularly when we’re married, we learn the answer to that question: yes. It’s not necessarily that too much niceness is bad, but that what one person might interpret as nice isn’t so great for the other. A friend and I were talking about that today in relation to our husbands. She shared that one time, her husband managed to bring home a big chocolate cake on the first day she was starting a new diet, something he knew about. Another time he kept filling … Continue reading →

The Harmful “Him” vs. “Her”

I know that men and women think differently. My first impulse is to examine how much of that is natural and how much is a result of cultural conditioning, but that’s a study for another time, and really another blog. What I want to focus on today is the sort of “us” vs. “them” mentality that arises sometimes, and how that might affect marriages. I had to read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” for a high school health class. I found it abhorrent, and said as much in my paper on the book. I understand as much … Continue reading →

Disciplining Your Child: Some Ways Work Better Than Others

I would love to think that time-outs were the ideal disciplining method to curb unruly behavior and bad attitudes, but sometimes they are not. They are a good first method to try and hopefully it will work. It does not harm the child physically. It is also not too harmful regarding their self-esteem. Once the time-out is over and done the previous activity can resume. I tried time-outs many times. I was hoping that it would eventually work. It did somewhat, but not as well as I had hoped it would. Initially, time-outs were me holding my child in his … Continue reading →

Don’t Do Your Child’s Homework for Them

One of the biggest complaints of students of all ages is the amount of homework they are assigned. This is true for kindergarteners, college students, and everyone in between. Teachers expect that the students will do their own homework, perhaps with a little help from their parents. You don’t do your children’s homework for them, though, right? An article in The Telegraph reveals some surprising things about who is really doing the homework that teachers assign. The information comes from a poll of 2,000 parents who had children between the ages of 5 and 15. The research showed that in … Continue reading →

Men and Women Are from Earth

A study came out recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: “Men and Women Are from Earth: Examining the Latent Structure of Gender.” The central hypothesis of the paper is that men and women actually aren’t all that different.  Many of the differences that we might demonstrate have more to do societal expectations than inherent biology. This isn’t the first study on the subject.  I recently read the book “Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference,” by neuroscience psychologist Cordelia Fine.  In it she exposes noticeable trends in male vs. female psychology, both in … Continue reading →

Living with Engineers: It’s All in the Timing

Another engineer’s wife and I were having a discussion about household chores yesterday.  We were bemoaning the fact that if we want our husbands to do something for us, we either need to tell them right away, or it won’t happen at all. The engineer’s mind is a constant one-way track of processing information.  It’s what makes them so brilliant and efficient: they zero in on a task, giving it their complete focus until it’s done.  I’m almost always thinking about other things while I’m working on something, which is why it can take me longer to achieve something with … Continue reading →

Doofy Husbands

Have you ever heard of doofy husbands?  They’re the guys in commercials who are always incapable of doing anything around the house.  They try to do the laundry, clean a room, or cook a meal, always to hilarious failure.  Their long-suffering wives come into the room and shake their heads, then proceed to use whatever product is being shilled to accomplish the task with ease. The concept of doofy husbands is problematic for a couple reasons: it doesn’t give men enough credit, and it perpetuates the idea that men aren’t good at performing many household, traditionally feminine tasks.  It implies … Continue reading →

Living with Engineers: Spouses, not Supervisors

Living with an engineer involves more than just having to hear the word “efficient” all of the time. A lot of engineers end up in management positions, and that means one thing: they’re bred to supervise. The word “efficient” does get bandied about, in how they think tasks ought to be accomplished. I already shared my story about measuring butter for baking, and how my husband felt about that. That’s not the only time something like that has happened. Sometimes, I find Jonathan trying to supervise me when we’re completing a project. To be fair, sometimes I ask for it. … Continue reading →

The Effects of the Media on Romance

Where do our irrational romantic impulses come from? Are they just something we naturally want; after all, everyone likes to be spoiled. But often we equate all romance with grand gestures, or expect our relationships to play out like fairy tales. We have the media to blame for that. I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, and it must seem like I think we shouldn’t watch movies or television. I don’t believe that at all, but I can testify that too many romcoms, or at least, not approaching them in the right way, can have a negative effect. … Continue reading →

Tossing the Bouquet and Garter

One wedding tradition I didn’t follow at my own reception was the tossing of the bouquet and garter. I didn’t like the idea that it symbolized women scrabbling to be the next to get married, or having Jon remove an article of my clothing in front of everyone. If we look at the origins of this particular wedding tradition, we can see how it evolved. Traditionally, brides carried a bouquet that contained strong-smelling herbs and spices. This was, in part, another way of warding off evil spirits, but it could also serve to sweeten the proceedings if any of the … Continue reading →