Let's talk: parental responsibilities

Let's face it.  We live in a time where single parenthood is normal.  Before then there TWO parents living in the same household, where the father works and the mother says home with the children, doing the cooking and the cleaning.  There there are two parents who have jobs, living on a two family income.  Now, we got single women having children out of wedlock, some are ignorant because they should have known better than to have unprotective sex, some are very naive because their parents never gave them THE TALK when they were growing up, so therefore they got no clue what they're getting into when they hook up with boys at a young age.

Young divas between age 13 and 21, (I hope you're reading this article carefully).   If you're are a virgin, I strongly recommend that you remain staying that way until graduate from college and have good job to support you.  If your parents never gave you a pep talk about the birds and the bees, then ask your school's guidance counselor or grade advisor to help you sign up for or create a sex education class for students.  If you're dating, be extremely careful of who you're courting.  What you don't know can hurt you in the long run.  Don't ever let a man push you into sleeping with him.  I don't care how fine he is, how popular he is in school, how good he is to you.  Both of you are not financially, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually ready to become parents.  You're practically babies yourselves and you got an awful lot to learn when comes to being an adult.  If you are sexually active (and some of you are out there, I know), take safe sex more seriously everytime you hookup with a guy.  If a guy forces himself onto you, go whatever it takes to get out of there and call the police on him.  Wear a condom when you get intimate, this could not only prevent you from getting pregnant, but it also proctect you contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STD) like HIV and AIDS.  If you are pregnant, seek some help as soon as possible.  Talk to your guidance counselor, your family doctor, your preacher, someone you really trust because it's hard to tell your parents first, they would throw lots of negative reactions on you but give them a chance to calm down.  Talk about adoption agencies that are legit if you want give it up for adoption.  Know the laws in your city and state in terms of abandoning your child in the street.  In New York City, there is a state law called safe haven law for mothers who abandon their unwanted babies on public streets, they could get arrested for that.  In this law, a mother is suppose to leave her unwanted child at places like hospitals, police stations, fire house, anyplace where there is a lot of people who have connections to child services and adoption agencies.  No questions will be asked.  Talk about abortion clinics if you want to abort the pregnancy, know the state laws regarding abortion and KNOW YOUR RIGHTS, there are authority figures who don't believe in abortion.  If you want keep the baby and raise him or her, ask about government programs to support you and your child such as welfare, food stamps like SNAP (used to be EBT) or WIC program, affordable health insurance programs for your child, and public housing programs in case you want to move out.  You must know who the child's father is, it takes two to make a baby.  If you do know who it is, then you need to let him know, he has the right to know and so does the child.  Make him take a paternity test to prove it.  Every child needs a father figure in their lives, I mean a man who can be there for the child, who can provide for them, who can protect them, who establish discipline and structure for the child.  And for God's sake, don't ever use child support to spend the money on yourself, that's selfish, that's greedy and it shows that you're using your child to get what you want and milking the baby dady out of his hard earned money which he needs to pay his bills with.  (Excuse me for getting real)  If you don't know who it is because it could more than just one guy you've slept with, track down every guy you hooked up with and make them take paternity test until you find the exact DNA match.

For divas, 21 and over, you should know right and wrong and should know better about what you're doing, what you're about to do and the consequences of your actions by now.  You have more self respect and self worth.  Some of you out there want to party once you've reach 21, but if you have a child your partying days are over.  You have a responsibility to take care of, which means that it's time for you to really grow up.  You need to start changing gears and set a very positive example for the child. You and the child's father must stay in contact, even if you're not a couple and you can't get along and seeing other people.  Start by taking parenting classes.  Find a way to co-exist together for the sake of the child, not just money wise but also emotionally because children can mimic your attitudes and emotions by watching you, so watch what you do and what you say in front of your children.  What you and your baby's daddy do right now can affect the child's future in life.

For divas who are in their late thirties and over and has a teen daughter who is suddenly pregnant, don't get upset, don't panic.  You may think that this will never happen to your own daughters because of the way you raised them.  Please, don't make assumptions like because you probably don't know what's going on out there and times are changing.  This is now the time to be there for your daughter in her time of need, she's very young, scared and doesn't know what to do.  You got to help her make good decision and be open minded for options regarding health and pregnancy.  Don't ever throw your daughter out of the house.  That shows abandonment and neglect and selfishness.  She can't handle herself in the streets alone, especially when she is with child.  If you find out if your teen son got a girl pregnant, make him take parenting and child care classes, that way he will learn to be a good father to the child.

The main reason why I'm addressing this issue to all you divas because this generation has too many absentee fathers.  Some women have too much pride in raising children alone without telling them who their birth father is.  Most children never knew their father because their mothers never talked to them about him.  That could cause consequences.  For example, I recently heard about a young woman dating an older man nearly twice her age, they got intimate a few times, then she brung him to her home so he can meet her family, but the woman's mother suddenly recognized him and confessed to her that the man the man the woman is dating is really her birth father and the DNA confirmed it.  Both the woman and the man felt devastage never knowing about their hereditary.  Basically this is the mother's fault because she was selfish and foolish to make decisions to hide that information from both the man and her daughter for so long.  This is karma for her.  Please, don't betray your daughters or sons by denying their rights to know who their father is.  Don't keep the child's father out of the picture by ignoring the fact that he has a child with you.  Think about it.

Remember you don't have to be rich and famous to be a diva, being yourself is what a diva is all about.  Blessings!

Diva Tip: Bowls instead of plates.

Some of you want to start off the New Year by losing weight, which is common every New Year.  Some do it naturally, others try diet plans or programs.  And therea girls who think its ok to starve themselves to an early grave just to lose weight (something I clearly don't recommend).  Every time we eat a meal whether it's breakfast, lunch or dinner, we tend to fill our plates in larger portions, we might have a temptation of having everything we see that's appealing to us by the sight, the aroma and the taste.  This is the habit we have since we're little girls when we first started eating solid foods.  We care more about the taste more than nutrition.  Sometimes we overstuff our plates and eat more than we can digest, sometimes we skip breakfast and go on to eating lunch and ignoring dinner.  These are the kind of cycles we need to stop.

So for this week's tip, we're going to use bowls instead of plates.  Why?  They can cut meal portion size in half.  When on a diet, we are told to eat meals at small portions, but we don't know how much or how little.  When we use plates, we don't know how much we going eat and it could be tempting to overstuff our plates.  With bowls, you know exactly how much meal you're filling. 

Use regular sized bowls to eat meals with.  No bigger bowls like mixing bowls, that's cheating.  No small bowls either, that's shaming yourself.   Use any regular sized bowl as a measuring instrument.  Fill your bowls with food.  You meal must not reach above the rim of your bowl, it shows that you're eating too much.  Your meal must be filled 1/8 below the rim.  Never fill your meal only at the base of your bowl like a 1/4 full or smaller that shows that you're eating too little.

When you go out, make sure you bring a disposal paper bowl with you.  You can bring a heat resistant plastic bowl with you, when having lunch at work (Remember to clean your bowl when you're done eating lunch).  At a restaurant, ask the waitstaff worker to serve your meals in bowls only.

Here's the factor in daily meals.  3 meals a day, 4 snacks a day and water in between.  You read me right, 4 snacks.  You are allowed to eat snacks as long as they're healthy.  So never mind what people said about not snacking between meals.  Has it worke for them?  I bet not.  You can eat what you want, but make sure you eat in moderation.  3 meals in bowls only, 4 small snacks, and 8 ounces of water 8 times a day (preferably spring water).

Try this tip and you won't feel starved or missing out on what you love to eat and it could help you lose weight as long as you add exercise and physical activity to the mix.

Remember, you don't have to be rich and famous to be a diva, being yourself is what a diva is all about.  Blessings.

New Year, New Beginnings

Happy New Year to all fellow divas.  I hope you enjoyed your holidays as much as I did.  I bet you have a list of resolutions, plans and goals that you either want to achieve or change.  January 1 is always the best time for new beginnings, so make today your time to start a project, join social groups or community of support, try a different diet program, create a new style or fashion statement, gevelop a new talent, go someplace you never went to before or been wanting to go to so badly, sign up for classess on fields of your interest, learn something new, try something new, do something new.   Keep the list in handy as a reminder, make copies of it if you want to because over the months down the line we get side tracked and tend to forget.  Set up a list of long term goals for a year or later, then break each goal down to a list of short term goals for each month.  Schedule your goals that way you'll have time to work on each of them and stay focused throughout the months.  You don't have to complete all your goals in one year, try to complete a few goals, that way you will feel that you accomplished something big at the end of the year that would make a big difference in your life and the lives of others.

Remember, You don't have be rich and famous to be a diva, being yourself is what a diva is all about.  Blessings.