The mother daughter bond

                                
The relationship between a woman and her mother is so powerful, it affects everything from her health and self-esteem to all her other relationships, experts say. Dr Christiane Northrup, author of the book Mother-Daughter Wisdom (Hay House), says: "The mother-daughter relationship is the most powerful bond in the world, for better or for worse. It sets the stage for all other relationships."
Dr Northrup says that no other childhood experience is as compelling as a young girl's relationship with her mother. "Each of us takes in at a cellular level how our mother feels about being female, what she believes about her body, how she takes care of her health, and what she believes is possible in life."
Jennie Hannan, executive general manager of services at counselling provider Anglicare WA, agrees. "How a woman sees herself, how she is in her adult relationships with partners, and how she mothers her own children, is profoundly influenced by her relationship with her own mother," she says. But while most five-year-old girls love their mothers with an unshakeable conviction, it's often a different story by the time they reach adolescence. The once-adored woman who rarely put a foot wrong is suddenly always doing embarrassing things.

Different phases  

"The time you are going to start having major problems with your daughter will be around adolescence," Hannan says. "Adolescence is a very difficult, tumultuous time for children and their parents, and it tends to happen in girls earlier than in boys."

Fortunately this wild swing from closeness to remoteness usually only lasts until the daughter reaches adulthood. "If the mother and daughter can hang in there during adolescence, your relationship moves to a different level and becomes more of a respectful friendship," Hannan says.
"I think what triggers them coming back is they become independent ... they move away from home, get a job, do the adult things in life. There's a need to grow up and the relationship shifts."
The relationship will change again when the daughter has children. "There's a greater level of understanding of the sort of depth of responsibility that you have as a mother to that child." If you had a less-than-perfect relationship with your mother, it doesn't necessarily follow that you won't have a good relationship with your own daughter, Hannan says.
"It gives you a head start if you had a good relationship with your mother, but lots of women who have had bad relationships with their mothers have had really positive relationships with other women in their lives.
"The idea that you can have a perfect relationship with anybody is flawed. Mothers do get blamed an awful lot if something's wrong with their kids. But being aware of things that were good and not good in your relationship with your mum is really important in not repeating any mistakes."
For most, the mother-daughter relationship is ultimately fulfilling. Despite conflicts and complicated emotions, 80 to 90 per cent of women at midlife reported a good relationship with their mother, a Pennsylvania State University study found.
"The relationship between mothers and their adult daughters is one in which the participants handle being upset with one another better than in any other relationship," says researcher Karen Fingerman, author of Aging Mothers And Their Adult Daughters: A Study In Mixed Emotions (Springer). "There is value in the mother-daughter tie because the two parties care for one another and share a strong investment in the family as a whole."

Forging a strong bond with your own daughter

"I'm a big believer in mother-daughter time," Anglicare WA's Jennie Hannan says. "I think we underestimate how important it is for mums and daughters to do things together in those early years. Doing that builds a foundation that will help you get through adolescence." Here are some ideas:
Go on regular special outings just the two of you. "Even just going to the park, when your daughter is little, will be worthwhile," Hannan says. Start mother-daughter traditions, such as going on long walks together, dining at a favourite restaurant or spending time together updating family photo albums. Go shopping together. Make something together - cookies, a cake, an egg-carton caterpillar. Watch a movie together, even if it's just at home on the couch.
Keeping things on an even keel with your mum is not always easy, as many celebrity mother-daughter relationships demonstrate. Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Meg Ryan and Britney Spears have all had very public bust-ups with their mums.

It's never too late to repair your relationship

• Try a counselling session on your own first to help you work out whether or not it will be helpful to attend counselling with your mother or daughter.

• Sometimes it's not possible to repair things that happened long ago. Instead, focus on working out how you would like to treat each other now.

• Even if your mother has passed away, if you have unresolved issues you could benefit from counselling sessions. "Sometimes talking through the possibilities of why something might have occurred can help you get some perspective," Jennie Hannan says.

Compiled by Bronwyn McNulty

WIVES:Your Husband’s Two Biggest Fears

                                              
Throughout the last several years, I’ve enjoyed the distinct honor of sharing a speaker’s stage with two beloved authors and Bible teachers—Kay Arthur and Beth Moore. And during one of our recent panel discussions before thousands of women, Miss Kay summarized a huge dose of marriage reality into so tight a capsule that any of us could swallow it and keep it down.
She said that men possess two great fears:

• the fear of being found inadequate.
• the fear of being controlled by a woman.

These fears lead them to the following attitudes and aspirations: Your man wants to be your hero. He wants to feel like he is worthwhile to you and needed by you. He desires more than anything to see a look of love and admiration in your eyes. He wants to know that you celebrate him, depend on him, feel privileged to be married to him, and expect great things from him.
Let’s see what these twin fears in our guys’ lives have to do with us and what will happen if we try to alleviate them.
His fear of inadequacy
Your husband desires to know more than anything that you trust him, that you believe he has the wisdom and talent to succeed. He is fulfilled when he senses that, despite his inadequacies, you see the possibilities and potential God has given him as your provider and protector. He likes knowing you’re praying for him, rooting for him, assuring him that he still has what it takes to be the man of your dreams. When he feels genuinely affirmed by you, it makes him want to live up to your trust in most cases. Then even when he falls short, it will be apparent that his desire was to meet your expectations. You’ll see in his eyes that he was trying to please you.
This alone should be some cause for your continued trust and appreciation, as opposed to blanket disapproval (which we are often notorious for offering). When he starts to sense that all you ever think he can do is to be sloppy, forgetful, unimaginative, irresponsible, weak, indecisive, and clueless, he will become less inclined and motivated over time to prove you wrong. He knows you’ll only find something to be critical of anyway.
I know your man’s not perfect. Not even close, you say? He knows it too. He’s not delusional. He knows he’s flawed, even if he’s not quick to admit it out loud. But just like you and me, he is not to be defined by his imperfections. He has been divinely wired to be a leader, father, and provider for your family. And the last thing he needs or wants is a wife who doesn’t believe it, who’s always correcting him, unwilling to either recognize or support these qualities in him.
A voice of support, confidence, and encouragement from you is electric to him. It quells the continual struggle against any sense of inadequacy that smolders inside of him. When you pull him aside to pray for him, when you tell him he’s been on your mind, when he sees in your eyes that you’re proud of the man he’s becoming, it’s like a shot of pure adrenaline to his system. It’s the soft warmth of security that comforts him from the ridicule of a harsh world and the internal jeering of his own insecurity.
Sure, there are times for talking plainly and honestly about things he needs to improve and watch out for. But probably not right now in the heat of the moment with that disappointment written all over his face. And probably not until he already knows for sure that your basic default is to love and take delight in him. An overall demeanor of gratitude will go a long way whenever the occasional reality check is called for.
If you’re like me, you have an inclination to be overly critical of your husband’s actions. But if your husband is anything like mine (and I suspect he is), he bristles at being corrected, criticized, and mothered by you. It makes him feel belittled and insignificant. Beaten down and discouraged. And even if you think that’s the way he ought to feel about himself after what he’s done and not done for you and your marriage, this sets a man up to be even more damaging and destructive to his entire family. It’s not good for anybody.
Men, honestly, even with all their complexities, are really very basic and uncomplicated. Our cutting, nagging comments can wound them deeply, especially when the disapproval builds up over time. What we think of as no more than a little jab about a specific incident becomes a stabbing wound that leaves a hole in their manhood.
Yet equally as powerful are our simple, honest, even offhand compliments that can make our husbands feel like a million bucks. When we make it our business to remind them of their position in Christ and the potential and possibility that lies within them—not because we’re patronizing them but because we truly believe it—they feel on top of the world. One man told me that a little compliment his wife paid him one morning as he was leaving for work caused him to have confidence in his abilities all day at the office. It pays for us to choose wisely what we say and how we choose to say it.
Now perhaps your husband has consistently proven that he’s not worthy of your trust. He’s been careless with money, drawn to addictions, perhaps even unfaithful to his marriage vows. The reason you can’t ascribe high value to his character, you say, is because he hasn’t shown you very much of it. And you’re right—his carelessness, laziness, or lack of integrity is not your fault. You are not responsible for what he’s done and is doing, even if you’ve been less than careful about loving him well and feeding his ego.
But even you—even now—can resolve to affirm your husband and to promise that your trust in him is not gone forever. It may need to be reconstructed with the aid of outside help and ongoing accountability, but he needs to know that your heart’s desire is to reestablish confidence in him.
So even in the most minor of baby steps, will you begin inching forward in your visible signs of trust and affirmation toward him? Will you allow him the new (or at least long-forgotten) experience of walking into the day with his wife’s love and esteem trailing behind him? Will you look him in the eye and tell him you’re not devising a plan B, a fall-back arrangement in case he doesn’t ultimately pan out—that he is your one and only plan A?
And now, to the second of his fears.
His fear of being controlled
Males and females have equal value, but we are not the same. Your standards and opinions are different from his, perhaps in many areas of potential contention. But that doesn’t mean his way is necessarily wrong. It’s just different, though equally as crucial and valuable to the successful outcome of the situation. If you try to control him and force him into your way of thinking, you will break something that probably doesn’t need fixing, just understanding and valuing.
When your husband feels like he’s being controlled, he will eventually shut down completely, relegating his role of leadership to you, since “you seem to be doing such a good job at it anyway.” The result is a shadow of the man you once knew and loved—a deflated, disinterested slacker who makes few decisions and shows little initiative. Then, in the vicious cycle created by this marital dynamic, you become increasingly overwhelmed, frustrated, and upset because you feel like you’re bearing the burden he should be carrying—when in actuality, it’s the very burden you snatched away from him because you didn’t like how he was doing it.
But if, on the other hand, he doesn’t feel like he’s being bullied out of his God-given position as the leader in the home or held up to your overbearing, micromanaging scrutiny, he’ll not only be more likely to settle in to his potential but also to seek your help and willingly relinquish certain responsibilities that you’re clearly more equipped to handle. In other words, he won’t mind admitting that you’re better than him in a particular area. So some of the things you’ve been vying to claim more control and influence over may come back to you without a fight—as if it was his idea all along—once he doesn’t feel like he has no choice but to abdicate.
And you know what? This could also rebound to you in the areas of intimacy and romance. A man who feels controlled by his wife loses much of his desire for being tender toward a woman who sounds, acts, and treats him more like his mother. No wonder he doesn’t look dreamily into her eyes or spark romantic endeavors with her the way he used to do when she just wanted to be his sweetheart and allowed him to be her champion.
I’ve never seen a car whose engine started just because the driver was sitting behind the wheel, demanding that it move forward. Certain things need to happen before she can get the car to go—key in the ignition, maneuvered into the right gear, gently pressing on the accelerator. Men aren’t “turned on” by a demanding, screaming wife who doesn’t recognize their value and significance but by wives who know the strategic steps for getting them started. Control and intimacy are on opposing, collision courses that will inevitably banish passion to the long-term parking lot, eventually rusting out, in need of major repair. Backing off your husband helps him feel more confident, more fulfilled. And the result is a guy who loves being around you, enjoys long talks with you, and remembers how to romance you.
Helping him overcome
Two fears. Fear of inadequacy and fear of being controlled. You can do something about them both. In fact, your husband will never get over them without you.
But with you … who knows?
You are the ”suitable” helper (Genesis 2:18) the Lord has given him to assist him in realizing that with God’s help he can be proficient, honorable, trustworthy, and fully capable of becoming the man God intends him to be despite his fears.

 Written By Priscilla Shirer

The "Role" of the wife in Marriage?

                                  
Perhaps more than at any other time in history, women today need a clear understanding of how they should relate to their husbands. In fact, the significant social changes brought about by the women's movement over the last few decades have led to such confusion that the very idea of "roles" is repugnant to some. They feel as if somehow they lose their identity and their freedom if they adhere to some type of "outdated standard."
It's important for us to look clearly at what the Bible says on this subject. And while the Bible doesn't apply our modern word "role" to marriage, the Scriptures are clear about the unique responsibilities God assigns to a wife.
 1: Be a helper to your husband.  While all of us are called to be helpers to others, the Bible places a special emphasis on this responsibility for wives. Genesis tells us that God realized it wasn't good for man to be alone, and that He decided to make a "helper suitable for him" (Gen. 2:18). It is interesting to note that the Hebrew meaning of the word helper in this passage is found hereafter in the Bible to refer only to God as He helps us. The fact that this same word is applied to a wife signifies that we women have been given tremendous power for good in our husbands' lives. God has designed wives to help their husbands become all that God intends for them to be.
 2: Respect your husband. In Ephesians 5:33, Paul says, " … the wife must respect her husband." When you respect your husband you reverence him, notice him, regard him, honor him, prefer him, and esteem him. It means valuing his opinion, admiring his wisdom and character, appreciating his commitment to you, and considering his needs and values.
Our husbands have many needs. The macho man who is self-contained, independent, and invulnerable is a myth. One day Dennis gave me a list of what he considered to be some of the primary needs most men have:

• Self-confidence in his personhood as a man.
• To be listened to
• Companionship
• To be needed

To me, meeting these needs is what respecting your husband is all about. To bolster Dennis' confidence, for example, I try to encourage him by being his Number One fan. Every husband wants his wife to be on his team, to coach him when necessary, but most of all to be his cheerleader. A husband needs a wife who is behind him, believing in him, appreciating him, and cheering him on as he goes out into the world every day.

 3: Love your husband. Titus 2:4 calls for wives "to love their husbands." A good description of the kind of love your husband needs is "unconditional acceptance." In other words, accept your husband just as he is—an imperfect person.
Love also means being committed to a mutually fulfilling sexual relationship. I realize there is a whole lot more to love than sex, but we are looking at how to fulfill God's command to love our husbands. Therefore, we must look at love from their perspective, not just our own.
Surveys show that sex is one of a man's most important needs—if not the most important. When a wife resists intimacy, is uninterested, or is only passively interested, her husband may feel rejection. It will cut at his self-image, tear at him to the very center of his being, and create isolation.
My husband's sexual needs should be more important and higher on my priority list than menus, housework, projects, activities, and even the children. It does not mean that I should think about sex all day and every day, but it does mean that I find ways to remember my husband and his needs. It means I save some of my energy for him. It keeps me from being selfish and living only for my own needs and wants. Maintaining that focus helps me defeat isolation in our marriage.
 4: "Submit" to the leadership of your husband. Just mention the word "submission," and many women immediately become angry and even hostile. This controversial concept has been highly debated and misunderstood.
Some husbands and wives actually believe submission indicates that women are inferior to men in some way. I have known women who think that if they submit they will lose their identity and become "non-persons." Others fear (some with good reason) that submission leads to being used or abused.
Another misconception is that submission means blind obedience on the part of the woman. She can give no input to her husband, question nothing, and only stay obediently barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
What does God have in mind? Here are two passages from Scripture:
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them (Colossians 3:18-19).
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body(Ephesians 5:22-30).
These Scriptures make it clear that a wife should submit voluntarily to her husband's sensitive and loving leadership. Therefore, as I voluntarily submit to my husband, I am completing him. I am helping him fulfill his responsibilities, and I am helping him become the man, the husband, and the leader God intended him to be.
Building oneness in marriage works best when both partners choose to fulfill their responsibilities voluntarily, with no pressure or coercion. To become the servant-leader God has commanded him to be, Dennis needs my gracious respect and submission. And when Dennis loves me the way he is commanded to, I can more easily submit myself to that leadership.

How it all fits together
If you have ever sewn a dress, or attempted to sew one, you know how a pattern works. The pattern is made of many pieces, some large and some small, none of which accurately resembles the finished product.
When you lay out the pattern and cut the cloth, you do not have a garment but only some scraps of cloth. When it is properly assembled and made usable with buttons, a zipper, or snaps, these pieces make a complete dress.
Every pattern has pairs of parts: two sleeves, two bodice pieces, a front and back skirt, and even the collar and facing pieces are usually in twos. A marriage is very similar. God has designed a master pattern for husbands and wives that when followed will create a whole, usable, beautiful marriage.
In the same way a dress can be made in a variety of sizes and colors with numerous differences in detail from one pattern, so my marriage may look different from yours. As we acknowledge Christ as Lord of our lives, we must work out our marriages according to God's plan. The key is for each wife to follow God's plan, know her part, and work to fit in with her husband's responsibilities.

Written by Barbara Rainey

BREAKING NEWS:PDP cancels convention

                                     

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),the largest political party in Nigeria and Africa has cancelled its national convention.

The convention, slated to hold in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, was stalled by security officials who sealed off Sharks Stadium, which was the proposed venue.

Members of the party were redirected to the Government House where Governor Nyesom Wike presided over a meeting where the decision to cancel the convention was reached.

The event has been the centre of controversy due to conflicting judgments from courts in Abuja and Rivers, one halting it and the other permitting it to hold.

 The PDP was expected to elect members of its National Executive Council (NEC) at the convention, but instead the party extended the tenure of its Caretaker Committee, led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, by one year.

Meanwhile, the PDP has accused security officials of attacking Wike’s convoy in a bid to prevent him from attending the convention.

The police have however defended the sealing off of the venue saying that the force has the duty of protecting lives and property in the face of threats to peace and stability.