Received: from beru.its.uow.edu.au ([130.130.68.31]) by anubis.ad.uow.edu.au with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:17:27 +1000 Received: from febris-nat.its.uow.edu.au ([130.130.68.210] helo=febris.its.uow.edu.au) by beru.its.uow.edu.au with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1IjOVT-0000iC-CQ for blane@uow.edu.au; Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:17:27 +1000 Received: from servervs1.bosweb.local (eth3951.nsw.adsl.internode.on.net [150.101.126.110]) by febris.its.uow.edu.au (MOS 3.8.5-GA) with ESMTP id GDS33267; Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:17:24 +1000 (EST) Received: from servervs1 ([127.0.0.1]) by servervs1.bosweb.local with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:16:44 +1000 Thread-Topic: The Power of Appreciation Reply-To: Message-ID: thread-index: AcgTd6myCn6797flQtKhcmFcdUY/Zg== From: To: Subject: The Power of Appreciation Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:16:44 +1000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_251C_01C813CB.7B6080F0" X-Mailer: Microsoft CDO for Windows 2000 Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message Importance: normal Priority: normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.3790.4133 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Oct 2007 00:16:44.0937 (UTC) FILETIME=[A9B5F790:01C81377] X-Junkmail-Status: score=10/49, host=febris.its.uow.edu.au X-Junkmail-SD-Raw: score=unknown, refid=str=0001.0A090203.471A9A50.00A3,ss=1,fgs=0, ip=150.101.126.110, so=2007-07-31 18:51:00, dmn=5.4.3/2007-09-06 Return-Path: info@fathersonline.org This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_251C_01C813CB.7B6080F0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Unable to read this email? Please click here Issue 270 - 22nd October, 2007 Go to our website Here * Hello & Welcome Brian * Grandads * Laughter * Single Dads * Special Feature * Thought of the Week * All You Need is Love * News & Info * Dad's Prayer * Help Us Hello & Welcome Brian Gordon Moyes was our speaker at the Good to Great Fatherhood Mentoring Course in Sydney last Wednesday. He is the only speaker of the course who has won a 'Father of the Year' award. Not that other speakers couldn't, they have never been nominated. Gordon well deserves the accolade as a father of four and grandfather of ten children. He is a great spokesman for fatherhood. He is also a great story teller. He told something about the early life history of well known commentator, Philip Adams, who was shockingly abused by his stepfather and suffered a shambolic family life as a young boy growing up. Mal Meninga's father left home when Mal was a young boy. When Mal became a famous footballer, his father used to come to football matches religiously to watch him play, never telling Mal he did so, or making any effort to communicate with his son. One time Mal Meninga was practicing his kicking on his own at the training oval when he turned and saw his father in the distance looking through the wire mesh fence. That was the last time Mal Meninga saw his father alive. A few weeks later he had died. Even as a grown man Mal Meninga would have loved to hear the words from his father's mouth, "Son you are doing well and I am really proud of you. Keep up the great job you are doing leading Australia as captain of the Kangaroos." As Cecil G. Osbourne said, "Perhaps once in one hundred years a person may be ruined by excessive praise, but surely once every minute someone dies inside for lack of it." Dale Carnegie tells a story in his famous book, 'How to Win Friends and Influence People': According to this silly story, a farm woman, at the end of a heavy day's work, set before her men folks a heaping pile of hay. And when they indignantly demanded whether she had gone crazy, she replied: "Why, how did I know you'd notice? I've been cooking for you men for the last twenty years and in all that time I ain't heard no word to let me know you wasn't just eating hay." When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It was 'lack of appreciation'. And I'd bet that a similar study made of runaway husbands would come out the same way. We often take our spouses so much for granted that we never let them know we appreciate them. Lovework Our children need to hear those words, 'I appreciate you' and so do our wives. The desire to be appreciated and thanked is not just limited to family members but our whole society is hungry to hear them. 'Thank you, I appreciate you.' Why not feed their hunger? You will be surprised at the results. Yours for the Power of Appreciation Warwick Marsh ___________________________________________________________ Warwick Marsh has been married to Alison for 32 years. He is the father of five children, four boys and one girl, ranging in age from 26 years to 14 years. Warwick is a musician, songwriter, producer and public speaker who likes to think he can still laugh at himself. back to top Grandads Words have an awesome impact. The impressions made by a father's voice can set in motion an entire trend of life. Gordon MacDonald back to top Laughter A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and tapped him on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the kerb and stopped just centimeters from a large plate glass window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab. Then the still shaking driver said "I'm sorry, but you scared the daylights out of me." The frightened passenger apologised to the driver, and said he didn't realise a mere gentle tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much. The driver replied, "No, no, I'm sorry, it's entirely my fault. Today is my first day driving a cab. I've been driving a hearse for the past 25 years." back to top Single Dads My name is John Flanagan. I am 56 years old. My main occupation is as a civil engineer, not as a politician. There is a Federal Election to be held on 24 November 2007. I am standing as a candidate for the Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting) http://www.ncpp.xisle.info This is because there is a need to highlight the unjust Family Law and Child Support system that exists in this country. The major political parties are doing nothing about these problems. There are approximately 1.2 million children who come from separated families in Australia. Forty per cent (40%)of these children lose total contact with one parent, within five (5) years of their parent's divorce or separation. The Family Court is part of the problem. The normal orders made by the Family Court are for only one parent to have the majority of the contact with the children. The other parent is normally only able to have contact every second weekend and part of each school holidays. Each parent should have the right to see their children equally without strict rules being applied. I had been in a de-facto relationship. I am the proud father of twin daughters. The problems started when the relationship ended. I thought that the Family Law system would be fair and equitable to everyone. What a shock I received! I had five (5) years of Family Court battles with no result - still every second weekend contact! As a non-custodial parent I found that I had no rights. It was an eye opener. For eighteen (18) months, I used solicitors to represent me. The cost of the solicitors almost exhausted my funds. I then represented myself. I also belong to the Fairness in Child Support (FICS) group (http://www.fics.xisle.info ). This is a local group of people in a similar position to me. The other issue is child support. Forty three per cent (43%) of liable parents are unemployed. This equates to 320,000 individuals. This is not because they do not want to pay child support. The system makes it so difficult that it is better being on the dole than being employed! The solution to the problems is quite simple - Equal Parenting. Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting). Request for Candidates and/or Volunteers The forthcoming Federal Election will be held on Saturday, 24 November 2007. The Election is one of the few avenues where we can show the major political parties that family law issues are important. Would you consider either? 1. Providing a donation to the Non-Custodial Parents Party's (Equal Parenting) election fund? (donations are tax deductible up to $1500.00) 2. Running as a candidate for the Non-Custodial Parents Party ?(Equal Parenting) A candidate's election costs are tax deductible. (You need to be an Australian citizen. However you cannot be an employee of the Commonwealth Government at the time of the Election). or 3. Giving out 'how-to-vote' cards on the day of the Election. Our target is to run, at least, two (2) candidates for the Senate in the each of the six (6) States and the two (2) Territories. We also aim to run candidates for the House of Representatives. We have a full range of policies. However our basic aim is to seek changes in the way our Family Laws are drawn up and administered. The Non-Custodial Parents Party's (Equal Parenting) Policies can be found at our web site located at http://www.ncpp.xisle.info/ If you wish to run as a candidate, we would have to ask you to pay your own deposit ($1,000.00 for the Senate and $500.00 for the House of Representatives). We may be able to help out with printing costs. Our aim is to let the major parties see that there are votes in our issues. This is rather than be elected to Parliament ourselves. Please note that the closing date for nomination of candidates is Thursday, 1 November 2007. Your assistance and support would be appreciated. John Flanagan Deputy Registered Officer Non-Custodial Parents Party Equal Parenting) PO Box 57 THIRROUL NSW 2515 Mobile: 0415 899 574 ncpp@xisle.info Editors Note: The Fatherhood Foundation is bypartisan and so we will never support one political party but we encourage our readers to get involved in the political process of whatever party they choose. back to top Special Feature DAILY DOSE - GOLF AND POKER NIGHT Healthiernews.com Oct 10, 2007 Despite the romantic prevalence of so many real or fictional man-as-solitary-loner archetypes in literature and pop culture (Henry David Thoreau, the Old Man and the Sea, the Lone Ranger, etc.), what men truly need in order to be as healthy as they can be is social interaction, yes, even rugged, individualist men like the Marlboro man. And now, there's credible research that shows just how important frequent and fulfilling bonding among males really is. A group of researchers from Sweden conducted a 15-year health study on a pool of nearly 750 men of varying backgrounds and determined that those with the greatest amount of social interaction, contact with many friends they saw on a regular basis, were less than half as likely to have heart disease, all other factors being equal (smoking, weight, job-related stress, etc.). Furthermore, the men in the study who showed the most evidence of a deep emotional attachment to their friends (not simply frequency of contact) proved only 58% as likely to DEVELOP heart disease as their more loner-esque counterparts. These findings amount to an astonishing reduction in risk, far greater, I'll wager, than any prescription drug can credibly boast. What does all of this mean? It means that your monthly poker night or round of golf with the boys (or whatever the bunch of you do for fun) is not only good for your soul, it's crucial for your heart, and every other aspect of your health, too. Yes, even if you down a few belts of good scotch or smoke a cigar or two (especially so, if you ask me) in the course of having fun. The research offered up no hypothesis as to WHY social interaction made such a difference in the heart disease risk of the study's men, but do we really even need to guess at the reasons? Isn't the answer obvious? Of course it is. Common sense should tell us that the personal happiness and a sense of belonging we derive from spending quality time with people of like mind and sensibilities (friends, in other words) is vital to life, and to REALLY LIVING, no matter what our sex. And it takes no high-falutin' study from Sweden to prove it, but it was Swede of them to do it. back to top Thought of the Week Give honest, sincere appreciation. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise, and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a life time - repeat them years after you have forgotten them. Dale Carnegie back to top All You Need is Love Stacey and Sharif Mahdavian The New York Times October 7, 2007 By Lois Smith Brady WHEN Stacey Frigerio and Sharif Mahdavian were married on Aug. 30, 1997, she made him a promise: one day, she would carry the luggage when they travelled. Mrs. Mahdavian broke her back in a car accident the summer after she graduated from college. Since then, she has walked with canes and leg braces, and sometimes uses a wheelchair. She cannot negotiate snowy sidewalks, wear flip-flops or push a vacuum. "I can't say I'm sorry about that," she said. When they married, she and her husband were both lawyers. Mr. Mahdavian worked at a Manhattan firm and Mrs. Mahdavian as a prosecutor with the district attorney's office in Brooklyn. They lived in a Brooklyn walk-up and Mr. Mahdavian, who is as mellow as Mrs. Mahdavian is fiery, often carried her up the steep staircase. He didn't mind at all. He was also unfazed when she gave him a lengthy list of the things she couldn't do, including bear children. (She was told she couldn't.) "It didn't appear to me to be much of a choice," he said. "You fall in love with someone and say, 'That's the deal'." "And," he added, "It was a great deal." Mrs. Mahdavian, 40, believes a silent marriage is a troubled marriage. "I had a friend who got divorced," she said, "and he told me, 'We woke up one day and looked at each other and we didn't know each other." I remember saying to Sharif, "I don't ever want to get there." Several months after the wedding, Mrs. Mahdavian quit her job to spend more time with him. ("I don't want to be sitting at this desk," she remembered saying to herself late one Friday night in the office. "We're 30 years old, let's live.") In 1999, they moved to Chatham, N.J., where she zipped around the house in a purple wheelchair. He commuted to work in Manhattan; she prepared for the New Jersey bar exam. "One day, I'm at my dining room table studying for the exam and I'm sobbing, crying," she said. "So I call my best friend from high school, who's been through everything with me, and I said, "Bobby, I quit my job and I'm home all the time and I think I'm going crazy." And she said, "I think you're pregnant." That possibility had not occurred to Mrs. Mahdavian, but she took a pregnancy test, and it was positive. Anastasia Mahdavian was born in 2000; then Andrew in 2003; and Alex, another boy, in 2005. "Giving birth?" Mrs. Mahdavian said. "Piece of cake." Mr. Mahdavian, 39, no longer carries her up stairs or through snowstorms. ("We're getting a little older," he said with a sigh.) Instead, they improvise, invent and dream up ways to increase her mobility. He cuts and saws her leg braces so that they fit more comfortably. She has an adult tricycle for family bike rides. She has figured out how to play tennis with the children, sitting in her wheelchair in the driveway. "I always vowed I would not be a damsel in distress," said Mrs. Mahdavian, who still can't carry luggage but is busy devising a way that involves a cane and a rolling suitcase. During a recent trip to Disney World, the family got around like this: Mr. Mahdavian pushed her wheelchair as she pushed the double stroller. "We were like a choo-choo train," she said. At home, he does all of the grocery shopping, cooking, gardening and anything that requires a ladder, all with the quiet demeanour of someone doing yoga. "If you're an old-time husband who likes to be taken care of, I have some friends like that, this is not your lifestyle," he said. In turn, Mrs. Mahdavian does anything that can be accomplished from a sitting position. She pays the bills, dispenses hugs, ties shoelaces. She drives her kids everywhere (her favourite activities are driving and kayaking, she said, because she forgets she is disabled). Although she can't lift her children (the family has a full-time nanny), when they cry at night, she shimmies along the floor to their bedrooms and appears at eye level next to their beds. "She's extremely compulsive about having the kids have as idyllic a childhood as possible," Mr. Mahdavian said. But the children are not permitted to whine, complain, mope or, worst of all, quit. "I tell them, "You're a Mahdavian!" she said."When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade." Teamwork and conversation remain the most important parts of the Mahdavians' marriage. They put the children to bed at 7:45 so they can spend the evening talking and talking and talking in the kitchen. "I told Sharif," she said, "Dude, if we're going to do this, we have to do it together. I have no desire to have a stranger in the house who I pick up after." Most of their conversations these days are about his career. He quit practicing law in 2005, saying he was tired of arguing; he is now a ratings analyst for Standard & Poor's. "Stacey very much wants to be part of my work life and demands that I be part of hers," he said. For years, Mrs. Mahdavian said, she thought she would trade anything to be able to walk barefoot on grass, ski down a mountain or slow dance. "It's hard walking with braces," she said. "It's hard having people stare at you. It's hard to fall all the time, but I wouldn't trade my life just to have mobility." back to top News & Info Australian Camp Connect Association Lots of activities, links, programs, newsletter www.campconnect.org.au Manhood Men's Gathering 2007 Fri 9th 5pm- Sun 11th 3pm November Camp Bornhoffen, Gold Coast QLD www.mhwaq.org.au Focus on the Family Australia This Resource Guide has terrifc Family resources.Download below http://www.families.org.au/documents/Draft%20Version%203.pdf Australia is not immune from the killing of Innocent Children http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22622210-661,00.html?from =mostpop Hillsong Mens Conference 2-3 November. Get agrip on being a Bloke Register online at: http://www2.hillsong.com/conferences/mens/default.asp?pid=1420 back to top Dad's Prayer Dear God Help me say those words, 'Thank you'. Help me appreciate the people I meet whether I meet them for only a moment, or a lifetime. Help me find the good in people. Help me affirm and encourage the good in others with my words. Let me speak words of life, not words of death, words of hope, not words of despair. Words are powerful and it is my duty to use the power of words wisely. back to top Help Us Click here for more information about us Help Us! The Fatherhood Foundation is a Harm Prevention Charity. Fatherlessness and inadequate fathering has been proven to be a source of harm. The Fatherhood Foundation helps children by promoting excellence in fathering. Excellent fathers are in word and deed: responsible, involved, protective, loving and committed to the well-being of their children and their children's mother. If you would like to give financially to the Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund and receive tax deductibility: Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund (Name, address and amount details must be emailed for a receipt for tax deductibility) Westpac Branch Wollongong BSB: 032 695 A/C: 25-5558 Or mail cheque and address details to: PO Box 440 WOLLONGONG NSW 2520 AUSTRALIA The Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund is a public fund listed on the Register of Harm Prevention Charities under Subdivision 30_EA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. You have received the fathersonline.org newsletter because you have subscribed, or you have been subscribed by a friend. If you do not wish to receive future emails, please click the UNSUBSCRIBE button below or send an email to info@fathersonline.org with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject heading. back to top Click Here to Unsubscribe ------=_NextPart_000_251C_01C813CB.7B6080F0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Fatherhood Foundation
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Issue 270 - 22nd October, 2007 Go to our website Here


Hello & Welcome Brian

 

Gordon Moyes was our speaker at the Good to Great Fatherhood Mentoring Course in Sydney last Wednesday. He is the only speaker of the course who has won a 'Father of the Year' award. Not that other speakers couldn't, they have never been nominated.

 

Gordon well deserves the accolade as a father of four and grandfather of ten children. He is a great spokesman for fatherhood. He is also a great story teller. He told something about the early life history of well known commentator, Philip Adams, who was shockingly abused by his stepfather and suffered a shambolic family life as a young boy growing up.

 

Mal Meninga's father left home when Mal was a young boy. When Mal became a famous footballer, his father used to come to football matches religiously to watch him play, never telling Mal he did so, or making any effort to communicate with his son.

 

One time Mal Meninga was practicing his kicking on his own at the training oval when he turned and saw his father in the distance looking through the wire mesh fence. That was the last time Mal Meninga saw his father alive. A few weeks later he had died.

 

Even as a grown man Mal Meninga would have loved to hear the words from his father's mouth, "Son you are doing well and I am really proud of you. Keep up the great job you are doing leading Australia as captain of the Kangaroos."

 

As Cecil G. Osbourne said, "Perhaps once in one hundred years a person may be ruined by excessive praise, but surely once every minute someone dies inside for lack of it."

 

Dale Carnegie tells a story in his famous book, 'How to Win Friends and Influence People':

 

According to this silly story, a farm woman, at the end of a heavy day's work, set before her men folks a heaping pile of hay. And when they indignantly demanded whether she had gone crazy, she replied: "Why, how did I know you'd notice? I've been cooking for you men for the last twenty years and in all that time I ain't heard no word to let me know you wasn't just eating hay."

 

When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It was 'lack of appreciation'. And I'd bet that a similar study made of runaway husbands would come out the same way. We often take our spouses so much for granted that we never let them know we appreciate them.

 

Lovework

 

Our children need to hear those words, 'I appreciate you' and so do our wives. The desire to be appreciated and thanked is not just limited to family members but our whole society is hungry to hear them.

 

'Thank you, I appreciate you.'

 

Why not feed their hunger? You will be surprised at the results.

 

Yours for the Power of Appreciation

Warwick Marsh 

___________________________________________________________

Warwick Marsh  has been married to Alison for 32 years. He is the father of five children, four boys and one girl, ranging in age from 26 years to 14 years.  Warwick is a musician, songwriter, producer and public speaker who likes to think he can still laugh at himself.

back to top

Grandads

Words have an awesome impact.

The impressions made by a father's voice

can set in motion an entire trend of life.

 

Gordon MacDonald

back to top

Laughter

 

 

A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and tapped him on the shoulder.

The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the kerb and stopped just centimeters from a large plate glass window.

For a few moments everything was silent in the cab.  Then the still shaking driver said "I'm sorry, but you scared the daylights out of me."

The frightened passenger apologised to the driver, and said he didn't realise a mere gentle tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much.

The driver replied, "No, no, I'm sorry, it's entirely my fault. 
Today is my first day driving a cab.  I've been driving a hearse for the past 25 years."

 

back to top

Single Dads

 

My name is John Flanagan. I am 56 years old. My main occupation is as a civil engineer, not as a politician.

 

There is a Federal Election to be held on 24 November 2007. I am standing as a candidate for the Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting) http://www.ncpp.xisle.info  

 

This is because there is a need to highlight the unjust Family Law and Child Support system that exists in this country. The major political parties are doing nothing about these problems. 

 

There are approximately 1.2 million children who come from separated families in Australia. Forty  per cent (40%)of these children lose total contact with one parent, within five (5) years of their parent's divorce or separation.

 

The Family Court is part of the problem.

 

The normal orders made by the Family Court are for only one parent to have the majority of the contact with the children. The other parent is normally only able to have contact every second weekend and part of each school holidays. Each parent should have the right to see their children equally without strict rules being applied.

 

I had been in a de-facto relationship. I am the proud father of twin daughters. The problems started when the relationship ended. I thought that the Family Law system would be fair and equitable to everyone.

 

What a shock I received!

 

I had five (5) years of Family Court battles with no result - still every second weekend contact! As a non-custodial parent I found that I had no rights. It was an eye opener.

 

For eighteen (18) months, I used solicitors to represent me. The cost of the solicitors almost exhausted my funds. I then represented myself. 

 

I also belong to the Fairness in Child Support (FICS) group (http://www.fics.xisle.info ). This is a local group of people in a similar position to me.

 

The other issue is child support.

 

Forty three  per cent (43%) of liable parents are unemployed. This equates to 320,000 individuals. This is not because they do not want to pay child support. The system makes it so difficult that it is better being on the dole than being employed!

 

The solution to the problems is quite simple - Equal Parenting.

Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting).

Request for Candidates and/or Volunteers

 

The forthcoming Federal Election will be held on Saturday, 24 November 2007. The Election is one of the few avenues where we can show the major political parties that family law issues are important.

Would you consider either?

 

1.  Providing a donation to the Non-Custodial Parents Party's (Equal Parenting) election fund? (donations are tax deductible up to $1500.00)

 

2.  Running as a candidate for the Non-Custodial Parents Party ?(Equal Parenting) A candidate's election costs are tax deductible. (You need to be an Australian citizen. However you cannot be an employee of the Commonwealth Government at the time of the Election).

                              or

 

3.  Giving out 'how-to-vote' cards on the day of the Election.

 

Our target is to run, at least, two (2) candidates for the Senate in the each of the six (6) States and the two (2) Territories. We also aim to run candidates for the House of Representatives.

 

We have a full range of policies. However our basic aim is to seek changes in the way our Family Laws are drawn up and administered. The Non-Custodial Parents Party's (Equal Parenting) Policies can be found at our web site located at  http://www.ncpp.xisle.info/   

If you wish to run as a candidate, we would have to ask you to pay your own deposit ($1,000.00 for the Senate and  $500.00 for the House of Representatives). We may be able to help out with printing costs.

 

Our aim is to let the major parties see that there are votes in our issues. This is rather than be elected to Parliament ourselves.

 

Please note that the closing date for nomination of candidates is Thursday, 1 November 2007.

 

Your assistance and support would be appreciated.

 

John Flanagan

Deputy Registered Officer

Non-Custodial Parents Party Equal Parenting)

PO Box 57

THIRROUL NSW 2515

Mobile: 0415 899 574

ncpp@xisle.info

 

 

Editors Note: The Fatherhood Foundation is bypartisan and so we will never support one political party but we encourage our readers to get involved in the political process of whatever party they choose.

back to top

Special Feature

DAILY DOSE - GOLF AND POKER NIGHT

Healthiernews.com

Oct 10, 2007

 

Despite the romantic prevalence of so many real or fictional man-as-solitary-loner archetypes in literature and pop culture (Henry David Thoreau, the Old Man and the Sea, the Lone Ranger, etc.), what men truly need in order to be as healthy as they can be is social interaction, yes, even rugged, individualist men like the Marlboro man. And now, there's credible research that shows just how important frequent and fulfilling bonding among males really is.

 

A group of researchers from Sweden conducted a 15-year health study on a pool of nearly 750 men of varying backgrounds and determined that those with the greatest amount of social interaction, contact with many friends they saw on a regular basis, were less than half as likely to have heart disease, all other factors being equal (smoking, weight, job-related stress, etc.).

 

Furthermore, the men in the study who showed the most evidence of a deep emotional attachment to their friends (not simply frequency of contact) proved only 58% as likely to DEVELOP heart disease as their more loner-esque counterparts. These findings amount to an astonishing reduction in risk, far greater, I'll wager, than any prescription drug can credibly boast.

 

What does all of this mean? It means that your monthly poker night or round of golf with the boys (or whatever the bunch of you do for fun) is not only good for your soul, it's crucial for your heart, and every other aspect of your health, too. Yes, even if you down a few belts of good scotch or smoke a cigar or two (especially so, if you ask me) in the course of having fun. The research offered up no hypothesis as to WHY social interaction made such a difference in the heart disease risk of the study's men, but do we really even need to guess at the reasons?
Isn't the answer obvious?

 

Of course it is. Common sense should tell us that the personal happiness and a sense of belonging we derive from spending quality time with people of like mind and sensibilities (friends, in other words) is vital to life, and to REALLY LIVING, no matter what our sex. And it takes no high-falutin' study from Sweden to prove it, but it was Swede of them to do it.

back to top

Thought of the Week

 

Give honest, sincere appreciation.
Be hearty in your approbation
and lavish in your praise,
and people will cherish your words 
and treasure them
and repeat them over a life time -
repeat them years after you 
have forgotten them.
 
Dale Carnegie
 
  

back to top

All You Need is Love

Stacey and Sharif Mahdavian

The New York Times October 7, 2007

By Lois Smith Brady

 

WHEN Stacey Frigerio and Sharif Mahdavian were married on Aug. 30, 1997, she made him a promise: one day, she would carry the luggage when they travelled.

 

Mrs. Mahdavian broke her back in a car accident the summer after she graduated from college. Since then, she has walked with canes and leg braces, and sometimes uses a wheelchair.

 

She cannot negotiate snowy sidewalks, wear flip-flops or push a vacuum. "I can't say I'm sorry about that," she said.

 

When they married, she and her husband were both lawyers. Mr. Mahdavian worked at a Manhattan firm and Mrs. Mahdavian as a prosecutor with the district attorney's office in Brooklyn. They lived in a Brooklyn walk-up and Mr. Mahdavian, who is as mellow as Mrs. Mahdavian is fiery, often carried her up the steep staircase. He didn't mind at all. He was also unfazed when she gave him a lengthy list of the things she couldn't do, including bear children. (She was told she couldn't.)

 

"It didn't appear to me to be much of a choice," he said. "You fall in love with someone and say, 'That's the deal'."

 

"And," he added, "It was a great deal."

 

Mrs. Mahdavian, 40, believes a silent marriage is a troubled marriage. "I had a friend who got divorced," she said, "and he told me, 'We woke up one day and looked at each other and we didn't know each other." I remember saying to Sharif, "I don't ever want to get there."

 

Several months after the wedding, Mrs. Mahdavian quit her job to spend more time with him. ("I don't want to be sitting at this desk," she remembered saying to herself late one Friday night in the office. "We're 30 years old, let's live.")

 

In 1999, they moved to Chatham, N.J., where she zipped around the house in a purple wheelchair. He commuted to work in Manhattan; she prepared for the New Jersey bar exam.

 

"One day, I'm at my dining room table studying for the exam and I'm sobbing, crying," she said. "So I call my best friend from high school, who's been through everything with me, and I said, "Bobby, I quit my job and I'm home all the time and I think I'm going crazy." And she said, "I think you're pregnant."

 

That possibility had not occurred to Mrs. Mahdavian, but she took a pregnancy test, and it was positive.

 

Anastasia Mahdavian was born in 2000; then Andrew in 2003; and Alex, another boy, in 2005.

 

"Giving birth?" Mrs. Mahdavian said. "Piece of cake."

 

Mr. Mahdavian, 39, no longer carries her up stairs or through snowstorms. ("We're getting a little older," he said with a sigh.) Instead, they improvise, invent and dream up ways to increase her mobility. He cuts and saws her leg braces so that they fit more comfortably. She has an adult tricycle for family bike rides. She has figured out how to play tennis with the children, sitting in her wheelchair in the driveway.

 

"I always vowed I would not be a damsel in distress," said Mrs. Mahdavian,  who still can't carry luggage but is busy devising a way that involves a cane and a rolling suitcase.

 

During a recent trip to Disney World, the family got around like this: Mr.  Mahdavian pushed her wheelchair as she pushed the double stroller. "We were like a choo-choo train," she said.

 

At home, he does all of the grocery shopping, cooking, gardening and anything that requires a ladder, all with the quiet demeanour of someone doing yoga.

 

"If you're an old-time husband who likes to be taken care of, I have some friends like that, this is not your lifestyle," he said.

 

In turn, Mrs. Mahdavian does anything that can be accomplished from a sitting position. She pays the bills, dispenses hugs, ties shoelaces. She drives her kids everywhere (her favourite activities are driving and kayaking, she said, because she forgets she is disabled). Although she can't lift her children (the family has a full-time nanny), when they cry at night, she shimmies along the floor to their bedrooms and appears at eye level next to their beds.

 

"She's extremely compulsive about having the kids have as idyllic a childhood as possible," Mr. Mahdavian said.

 

But the children are not permitted to whine, complain, mope or, worst of all, quit. "I tell them, "You're a Mahdavian!" she said."When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade."

 

Teamwork and conversation remain the most important parts of the Mahdavians' marriage. They put the children to bed at 7:45 so they can spend the evening talking and talking and talking in the kitchen.

 

"I told Sharif," she said, "Dude, if we're going to do this, we have to do it together. I have no desire to have a stranger in the house who I pick up after."

 

Most of their conversations these days are about his career. He quit practicing law in 2005, saying he was tired of arguing; he is now a ratings analyst for Standard & Poor's.

 

"Stacey very much wants to be part of my work life and demands that I be part of hers," he said.

 

For years, Mrs. Mahdavian said, she thought she would trade anything to be able to walk barefoot on grass, ski down a mountain or slow dance.

 

"It's hard walking with braces," she said. "It's hard having people stare at you. It's hard to fall all the time, but I wouldn't trade my life just to have mobility."

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News & Info

 

Australian Camp Connect Association

Lots of activities, links, programs, newsletter

www.campconnect.org.au

 

Manhood Men's Gathering 2007

Fri 9th 5pm- Sun 11th 3pm November

Camp Bornhoffen, Gold Coast QLD

www.mhwaq.org.au  

 

 

Focus on the Family Australia

 

This Resource Guide has terrifc Family resources.Download below

http://www.families.org.au/documents/Draft%20Version%203.pdf

 

Australia is not immune from the killing of Innocent Children

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22622210-661,00.html?from=mostpop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hillsong Mens Conference

2-3 November. Get agrip on being a Bloke

Register online at:

http://www2.hillsong.com/conferences/mens/default.asp?pid=1420

 

 

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Dad's Prayer

 

Dear God
 
Help me say those words, 'Thank you'.
Help me appreciate the people I meet
whether I meet them for only a moment, 
or a lifetime.
Help me find the good in people.
Help me affirm
 and encourage the good in others 
with my words.
Let me speak words of life,
not words of death,
words of hope,
not words of despair.
Words are powerful 
and it is my duty to use
the power of words wisely.

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Help Us

Click here for more information about us

Help Us!

The Fatherhood Foundation is a Harm Prevention Charity.
Fatherlessness and inadequate fathering has been proven to be a source of harm.

The Fatherhood Foundation helps children by promoting excellence  in fathering. Excellent fathers are in word and deed: responsible, involved, protective, loving and committed to the well-being of their children and their children's mother.

If you would like to give financially to the Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund and receive tax deductibility:

Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund
(Name, address and amount details must be emailed for a receipt for tax deductibility)
Westpac Branch Wollongong
BSB: 032 695
A/C: 25-5558

Or mail cheque and address details to:
PO Box 440
WOLLONGONG  NSW  2520
AUSTRALIA

The Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund  is a public fund listed on the Register of Harm Prevention Charities under Subdivision 30_EA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.

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