Tag: motivational

Motivation, parenting, Politics, Uncategorized

How is it Progressive to Destroy Everything?

Katrina Russell

All I hear from progressives every single day is about how bad everything is. They say the police are bad and need to be defunded, yet call them on everyone all the time. They say the government is bad, and racist, but they want to give the feds more and more power. They say that every institution in the country is racist and sexist, that personal isms has lessened, but institutional isms are still strong, but can’t point to one policy which supports this, it’s all about the people who are instituting the policies.. even though personal isms are down.

They want to end wars by supporting terrorist. They want to fight fascism by taking away individual rights. They want to celebrate diversity, by stopping people from disagreeing with them. They want to sexualize children and murder babies before they’re born.. all in the name of rights for people who aren’t capable of picking out what they want for breakfast… or, you know… haven’t taken their first breath yet.

These people think that immediate self gratification is more important than human rights. They think the rights of women to have indiscriminate sex with no repercussions are more important than the rights of people who are conceived by this random hook-up culture. They think people should be allowed to rob local stores for whatever they could possibly need, because it’s their human right to have stuff, but it’s not the store owner’s human right to protect their own property.

These people want to destroy everything that we’ve all worked so hard to build up, because they think it’s unfair that people have to work for things. They think it’s unfair that those who have accomplished things in the past have the right to help their family in the present. They are mad that they’re bad choices have consequences and blame people 100 years ago fort their failures today. They want to destroy everything that they see, because today’s progressives are like toddlers who don’t like that their friends built a higher tower than they did and rather than asking for help or trying harder they just knock down their friend’s . They’d rather everyone be miserable than have to put in the effort to try to be better.

Uncategorized

Culture is Creating a Bigger Generational Gap

Katrina Russell

I remember seeing someone that I watch on my podcast talk about how culture is dying. He commented that there is nothing new coming out, and everything is just a rehash of everything old. I found that interesting, and wondered what that all meant.

I had noticed that all of the magazines and movies still had actors and actresses in them that I grew up with. In the last 10 years the People’s Sexiest Man Alive have been from my generation or at least older Millennials.: Patrick Dempsey, Chris Evans, Paul Rudd, John Legend, Idris Alba, Blake Sheldon, Dwayne Johnson, David Beckham, Chris Hemsworth, and Adam Levine.

When we talk about the top grossing movies and who stars in them most of them are Marvel movies that are predominately Gen-X and older millennial stars, There’s some Harry Potter movies based on books that came out when Millennials were kids, and then a lot of remakes like The Fast and the Furious, Despicable me, and Jurassic Park… again. The best movies are still the cult classics like the John Hughes films and pop culture has created merch around my childhood.

I recently started to listen to the radio again and I noticed in my area, which is the Boston area, not some hick county, there are now 3 stations with K-Love (a Christian radio station), and most of the others play hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. That’s 50 years ago! I remember when they got rid of the “Oldies” station because it’s original intent was to play music for the Boomers from when they were kids and at the time it was 20-30 years old.

The average age of the best actor that one the Oscar this year was 53. The average age for a woman was 45 . It is hardly a young person’s game anymore. Growing up most of the big actor were in their 30s. Names like Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, Tom Hanks.. they were the young people when I was growing up, and they are still the ones on the cover of all the magazines and TMZ follows around like puppies.

I was starting to think that the guy in the podcast was right. Until I went to the movies with my kid. When I was younger going to the movies was what everyone did. Every Friday and Saturday night the place was packed. We always walked to the theater which was best because there was never any parking. Even when my goddaughters were young and I’d take them to the movies there was always a line for popcorn and the bathroom. One of them is a young Millennial the other a Gen-z.

Now when you go to the theater it’s empty. Now everyone stays home and streams movies. They stream movies and videos and shorts on their own devices. When I was little everyone watched the one TV in the house with their whole family. Now I have to check my kid’s YouTube history to see what he’s watching. Though he and I do have our shows that we watch together on the apps. I’m looking at you Father Brown.

Kids today don’t listen to the radio in the cars with their parent. They are plugged into whatever device they have through Bluetooth headphones and have no idea what’s going on around them. And the adults have no idea what the kids are watching. There is no shared culture because no one shares anything. Everyone is in their own bubble. The new generation doesn’t have a favorite actor. They have their favorite influencer or gamer. My kid is all about Unspeakable and .. I wanna say Ubb.. but part of me feels like that can’t be real.

If we want to have a future and a community and culture that we all share. We have to start unplugging and start communicating again.

Addiction, coaching, free speech, Motivation, parenting, Uncategorized, women

Why do people hate life?

Katrina Russell

I suppose a good place to start is to ask what is life? If you Google this question the first response is a dictionary entry

life

/līf/

noun

1.the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.”the origins of life”Similar:existencebeinglivinganimationalivenessanimatenessentitysentiencecreationsurvivalviabilityesseOpposite:deathnonexistence

2.the existence of an individual human being or animal.”a disaster that claimed the lives of 266 Americans”

I don’t really think that helps. I mean, I guess it helps to understand when life begins and ends, which people seem to have forgotten somehow.

When you ask people today about life you tend to get responses like, “Life sucks, then you die”. They actually put that on pins and bumper stickers. People commiserate with each other about how awful life is. They talk about how we spend our whole life working just to die. This is the general consensus.

The amount of Gen Z and Millennials who never want to have children is staggering, and they mostly blame the economy or climate change for this problem. Which is ridiculous when you think about the fact that people have been having children since people have been around and we are richer as a society than we have ever been.

People are putting gadgets and comforts before actual lives. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. Women are actually killing their children and most of the time it is over financial reasons. It may interfere with their career plans, or kids are just too expensive to begin with. In 2023 there were 1,026,700 babies murdered before they were even born. That doesn’t seem “safe, legal and RARE” as everyone used to claim they would be. This is a genocide People are purposefully killing unborn people for their own desires. Women are being taught that having a baby is not even one of the choices they can make.

Celebrities like Chelsea Handler make mock videos like, A Day in the Life of a Childless Woman in which they talk about doing the most useless and ridiculous things just to glorify this path. People are told that being able to travel is impossible once you have kids, but then people complain that they can’t travel anyway because they always have to work to support their lifestyle.

Now this lifestyle that they speak of isn’t the same as Chelsea Handler’s running off to Paris for the afternoon. No, it’s $10 coffee drinks, and $300 bar tabs, and takeout every night because cooking is part of the patriarchy. It’s the latest iPhone, and the latest shoe of choice (whether it be a Jimmy Choo or a pair of Nike with a celebrity name on it all of which cost more than my rent in the 90s). And none of this counts as being excessive it’s just “self care” . Which we can’t forget hair and nails done every week.. that’s what life is all about now.

People are being taught that human rights are not actually rights and that humans are the problem. They are being taught that free speech and meritocracy are the problem and that the only thing that is important is buying more things and not working, because working is the patriarchy. Which is ironic since it used to be that men did most of the work and women just lived life taking care of their kids and the home.. but that was bad too. Everything is bad.

If you have a bad feeling take a drug. If you have a good feeling take a drug. If you’re not feeling enough take a drug. If you’re feeling too much take a drug. But whatever you do. Do not go outside and get fresh air. Do not exercise. That is the patriarchy telling you how you should look and feel. Here.. have a pill instead and zone out on the couch watching other people live. Because life itself is the problem.

Uncategorized

Society is Crumbling under the Guise of Kindness

Katrina Russell

I know this is going to sound like such a middle aged suburban woman rant, but I just learned of the murder of Johnny Wactor. He was the actor who played Brando Corbin on General Hospital. I know I’ve already lost some people thinking, “Who cares about some soap star?”. Well, I do. His family does. His co-workers and friends do, but that’s not really the point.

Johnny Wactor was murdered by someone trying to steal his car. Eight months ago Tyler Christopher, another soap star overdosed, and month earlier Billy Miller, another soap star committed suicide after a long fight with depression. This may seem like a stupid thing for me to be worrying about. They are just famous people doing famous things and ending up dead. That’s always happened. I get that.

The difference is, that it used to be just that. Growing up I knew how Elvis, Marylin, and many others overdosed. I knew that John Lennon, and Marvin Gaye were both murdered. These were just facts that people understood were part of being famous, but today it’s a fact that is part of everyday life.

Johnny Wactor wasn’t murdered because he was famous. I doubt the man stealing his car knew who he was. Violent crime rates today are actually on the rise for the first time in the last 70 years. Not surprisingly this is during the same time that the government has stopped charging people for drug related crimes. What is even less surprising is that drug overdoses have skyrocketed since the government stopped charging people for selling drugs. It’s almost like selling drugs, and taking drugs are not victimless crimes.

I don’t know when people started thinking that it’s perfectly ok to go out into the world and get other people, usually mentally unwell, depressed, anxious, or actually disturbed people addicted to substances that are just going to cause more damage to the already impaired brain. I don’t know when people stopped realizing that once addicted those same depressed, anxious, and disturbed people would go out an cause more problems in society.

No, we as a society can’t punish those who want to damage the rest of us for the sake of a few dollars.. no we have to accept everyone as they are. It’s not the drug dealers fault that they sell drugs. We shouldn’t punish them. Don’t judge the drug addict, we shouldn’t do anything to change their situation, it’s their choice to sell themselves on the street, or go rob people for a fix.. who are we to say no.

Society has become a haven of villainy. Big cities have turned away from the city on the hill and towards Gotham. The more vulgar. The more deranged. The more angst ridden the better.

Mental health problems have become a badge of honor in society today. 1-in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year, and that’s not including things like gender dysphoria which the government has suddenly decided isn’t a disorder anymore.. just totally normal. Suicides and drug overdoses now overtake the number of adolescent deaths, well beyond car accidents. The only one higher is gun deaths, and that’s because it includes all the gang violence that is sparked primarily by teens selling drugs to other teens.

The government is literally killing our kids with kindness. They are taking away the bail system. They aren’t prosecuting non-violent drug offences, which means selling drugs to people who will later go out and commit the violent crimes to get money for said drugs, or the dealers themselves will later commit violent crimes in order to retain their “Territory”.

Here’s the thing. Acceptance isn’t kind. Acceptance isn’t love. Allowing people to harm themselves and others is not helping anyone. We need to take control of our society again. We need to stop enabling the Jokers of the world, and making them out to be the victims. They are not. We need to lock up those who cause harm to our society in order to protect the vulnerable. We have to stop praising the “brave” people who are just “living their lives” endangering other.

Kids today are being poisoned. They are being poisoned with ideas. Poisoned with drugs, and poisoned by a society who claims to want to help. Helping means stopping bad behavior and rewarding good. Not the other way around.

Mental Health, parenting

Why is every job a mom does considered a job…. except being a mom?

Katrina Russell

We’ve all heard the cliche about a mom being a chef, taxi driver, maid, nurse, accountant, personal shopper, and the rest. It’s become a meme. There is a great video about “The World’s Toughest Job Interview” about just this. If you haven’t watched it then I suggest that you check it out.

When people say that they are stay at home moms (sahm) they are automatically looked down on for not having big goals and aspirations. As if being home to raise your children is somehow a bad thing. If a woman says that she’s a nanny this is completely acceptable. She is out there in the “real world” making money for herself. If she is a teacher she is a hero for giving her life to the service of children. If she is a maid she is doing her best for her family.. and so on.

It doesn’t matter that her being out of the house working means that she and her husband now need to pay someone else to be a nanny, and a teacher, and quite possibly their own personal maid. The world has changed their idea of what is worthy. Instead of a great and worthy life being what it always was, finding a partner to spend your life with, having children to live make sure that your legacy continues, and raising them to be productive members of society. Now a worthy life is making a lot of money and buying garbage you don’t need to prove that you can.

The point, the actual reason for a job is to support your family. That’s it. It’s to make sure that everyone in your family is well taken care of. Since the beginning of time people had to work to survive. Even before money was invented people had to work. This is something that is missed a lot in today’s society. Men usually worked outside by hunting, protecting, and building things. Women took care of the children, did the cooking, cleaning, and until the last couple hundred years the farming. That’s just since domesticated animals became a things and men can stay home and not have to be out in hunting teams all the time.

People grew and hunted or gathered food. People made clothes, and houses, and tools, and everything else one needs to survive. Most people did these things for their own personal use. Some cultures did these things collectively, and created a system of bartering that eventually turned into a money exchange because if someone spends 3 months building a bed and needs to exchange it for food and the only person who wants the bed has an apple farm it’ll take an awful lot of apples to pay for the bed… and then he has to trade apples for whatever else he wants. Money made the trading easier.

The reason that men traditionally “worked” is because the woman was taking care of the rest of the family. The most important part of society. What the man did for work was less important than how the mom raised her children. Now it’s reverse. Now both men and women are told they are nothing if they don’t work and having children is just a waste of time and money that could be spent on important things. Moms and dads are told that if they did make the mistake of having children it’s best to leave those children with others who aren’t as accomplished as they are to “deal with the kids” so the parents can concentrate on the important things.

Children are the most important things. Women who stay home do all the jobs of those who work only they don’t get paid… and they don’t have to pay out either. We need to stop telling women that they are useless if they don’t act like men, and start letting women go back to being the backbone of the family. Maybe then children will go back to being properly cared for by both a mom and a dad.

grief, Love, Mental Health, parenting, Prayer

Why I choose to believe

Katrina Russell

Let me start by saying that I only converted to Catholicism 8 years ago, and even then it was more of a tradition than anything else. My grandmother was born from Irish immigrants, and for those who don’t know, they are wicked Catholic…. at least the good ones are. My grandfather was Protestant, but he went out for cigarettes when my dad was a kid and I never met him.

My dad was raised in Catholic school, so he hated religion, nuns, rulers…. discipline… pretty much everything about it. My mom was one of those Protestants that I had mentioned and she went bonkers after I was born. I’m not saying that to be hyperbolic, she was actually diagnosed with schizophrenia. She talked a lot about God and how God used to tell her things, so my relationship with God was a little strained as a child.

My father did understand the importance of the Bible and its teaching. He understood its place in our society and the laws, rules and ethics that it taught. He didn’t talk to me about religion per say, but he read to me from the children’s’ Bible when I was small. I mostly have memories of snuggling on the couch with him and not understanding why Joseph’s brothers were so horrible. This was a very important memory to me though because in general my father didn’t read to me, so the fact that he took the time to do that with this book meant it must have been important.

I didn’t judge people who were religious. In fact my dad used to encourage me to check out different religions and see if any of them fit. I understood that my problems with religion itself had more to do with my mother and her psychosis than the religion itself, but for a long time people who talked about Jesus really freaked me out. When it was time to baptize my son I knew that I wanted him to be Catholic like my grandmother, who had passed away at that point. I had been baptized myself as a baby, but never any other formal religious teaching.

When I thought about which school in my area that I wanted my son to go to; I knew that I didn’t want him to go to the local public school where some of my friends taught and complained about how dangerous it was. I knew that I wanted him to go to the local Catholic school. Again, at this point religion was just background. As a person who studied history in college and has a general obsession with it and archeology (I blame Indiana Jones) I spent a lot of time watching documentaries and reading things about the history of the Bible and the archeological proof that has been discovered that backed up many of the stories. In general I was always fascinated by the time period, but never put a lot of effort in learning about the text itself. God was more of an idea from the past that helped other people, but didn’t really seem needed today.

Then my dad died, and I felt comfort in the fact that there was an afterlife and that I would see him again one day. Then his long-term girlfriend died, and I was glad that at least they were together. Then my dog died, and I thought that he could keep them company for the decades that it would be until we would reunite. Don’t get me wrong, I was devastated, but knowing that God is out there, knowing that my dad could look down on us and see my son and the wonderful little boy that he was becoming made that horrible year more bearable.

The following year my son started at the Catholic school and I became heavily involved. I volunteered whenever I could, and decided that if he was going there it would be best if we went to church on Sunday, especially the church that was attached to the school. I realized how much I wanted my son to have faith. I wanted him to feel comforted as much as I do.

This was 7 years ago. My son is now 10 and we still attend church every Sunday. He belongs to the choir, I teach a CCD class, and he attends his own. He has gotten his 1st communion, and we volunteer when we can. I love joining the Bible study classes. Our faith has become a huge part of our life. I don’t have a lot of time to read, but I listen to the Bible on Audible, and I love listening to commentary from all kinds of people about how they interpret The Word, and the stories being portrayed.

I have begun to realize how amazing The Bible actually is. How much was wisdom was articulated in that book that people today are still figuring out. Knowing that this book came from a time when a lot of people thought the sun traveled around the earth by a man pulling a chariot. This book talks about how everyone is created in Gods image and therefore just as important as anyone else. It talks about how, even though slavery is a norm at this time for many reasons, slaves must still be treated as fellow humans and given all the rights thereof. It talks about how children should honor their fathers as much as their mothers and how parents don’t have the right to kill their children even id they have done something wrong. It talks about how to live a successful life in any time.

The Israelites, or Jews as they are known today, have been laughed at, persecuted, and blamed for all the wrongs of the world, because, it seems no matter what wrong happens in the world they still manage to thrive. People think this is because they are “obviously stealing from everyone else” when in reality it is because they are working hard and taking care of each other as the Bible told them to.

A lot of Christians today want to discount the Old Testament, which I don’t understand. They seem to forget that Jesus was Jewish and specifically said that he was there in accordance with the law. In Matthew he said…

17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

There are a lot of people today who hate the fact that God asks things of us. They hate the fact that God lets bad things happen to us. They feel that God should be there personal valet and should be there to do their bidding, and that is the only way that God can prove himself.

I know so many people who either don’t believe or they hate God because bad things have happened to them, or because bad things happen in general. I know so many people who think they are getting punished by God because they haven’t been following His laws and their life is not the way they wish it to be. I know so many people who think that they have screwed up too much that God could never forgive them. My response is to that is that God is Our Father who art in Heaven. As our father He gives us His rules. He lets us know the best way to live a good life, and the things that we should concentrate on to get said life. What He doesn’t do is prevent us from experiencing our consequences.

Maybe I understand this because I was raised by a single dad. I didn’t have the mom around to coddle me, and protect me from myself. If I chose to climb a tree too high and fell out I was also the one who had an ice pack on my ankle later. If I chose to ran through the woods for the umpteenth time in shorts that summer then I was the one sitting out of the pool covered in pink stuff while still itching. My dad told me not to do things. He told me how to behave, but ultimately it was my decision and I had to deal with it. Occasionally he would see that I got in over my head and help me out, but that was few and far between.

The one thing he always did, no matter how much my brother and I screwed up. The one thing I never had to worry about, was that he loved us. He forgave us, and he gave us the opportunity to make better choices in the future. The reason that I believe in God is because I believed in my father. I believed in a relationship that is so much stronger than one could imagine. Now that I am a mother I know how much I love my son. I know that there is nothing he could do to make me not love him, but knowing that his father died of a drug overdose, I know that sometimes the ones you love can make choices that aren’t safe, and aren’t good to be around.

The reason that I believe in God is because God made us in His image. God made us knowing that we would screw up, and that life would be hard sometimes, but God made us because He knew that it would be worth it in the end. Just like my dad made me and just like I made my son. So many people today don’t want to have children because its expensive, or climate change, or some other material issue…. but for those of us who believe in God and know how much bigger life really is. We know that God made us, because it’s worth it. Love always is.

cancel culture, free speech, parenting, Politics

Have you lost friends to politics?

Katrina Russell

OK, be honest, have you lost any friends or family members to politics in the last few years? This seems to be more and more a common occurrence. People are incapable of disagreement anymore. They can’t have differing opinions. They can’t have their opinions challenged. They just want to live in a bubble of their own making.

Before the internet people formed their opinions about life primarily from their surroundings. Their family, friends, schools, churches, and whomever else they spent their time with. Now people get their information from invisible entities behind a keyboard. Everyone plugs into the same mainstream media and downloads the same information into their brains without ever questioning who is giving them the information or if it makes sense. They just listen and obey and are told that anyone who disagrees with the mainstream narrative is the enemy.

Thinking for yourself or doing your own research is now considered evil. You are a racist, sexist Nazi if you read something that is not put out by the media which supports one leg of the government while at the same time being convinced the government itself is also evil because there are people in the government who don’t agree with the media. It’s a cycle of ignorance being camouflaged as information.

The best way to tell that something is probably wrong is if no one is allowed to question it. Facts and people who are correct have no problem being questioned because they have the answers and understand how to communicate their point. People who are brainwashed are trained to shut down and turn away from anything that is contrary because those in charge know how flimsy their ideas are and how easily they can be turned over. If you are being told by the people giving you information that questions are not allowed… that is a major red flag.

I have lost family and friends to this ideology, and the saddest part is that they can’t even understand they are being manipulated. My brother and I have never been on the same page politically. We have always had debates and talked about the reality of topics. We both agree on the facts, but just have differing opinions about what should be done about these facts. For instance I am pro-life and he is pro-choice. We both understand that the baby is a baby. We both understand that an abortion kills the baby. We both agree that we would never want our babies to be aborted. He just doesn’t care if other people’s babies are. He doesn’t like most people in general and doesn’t care if their are fewer of them. He thinks we should be able to abort adults if they aren’t contributing to society. I guess he thinks similarly to the Canadians view with “assisted suicide”. That yes, there is a life, but no, the life doesn’t matter. I’m opposed to abortion and assisted suicide and think that all lives matter. We agree to disagree. Facts are facts and we’re allowed to have different opinions on how they are handled.

On the other hand I have 2 Goddaughters who I helped raise. They have 2 cousins that I have known since the say they were born. I have a cousin that I was always there for and even babysat over the years when we were little. All of whom disagree with my opinions on things. I don’t really know which parts, because they don’t talk to me about any of them. They just stopped talking to me. No explanation , no discussion… just nothing.

I’m the same person that was there for them their entire lives. I’m the same person that they know is not racist, sexist, homophobic or a Nazi, but they can’t handle that I have a different opinion than what the screen tells them to believe. They can’t handle that I bring up facts that they haven’t heard. In fact, one of them told me that facts were racist. She’s also a person who has a Master’s Degree, which confuses me because if facts are racist how did she get a degree? Were there no facts in her classes that she had to learn to pass?

There is a whole group of people out there that literally can’t handle information that goes against the grain. They can’t handle critical thinking. They would rather reject and hate people who love them and have been there for them their whole life than admit they may not understand something or may have gotten something wrong, or, in the case of my brother and me, that they are allowed to have different opinions about. And I feel bad for them, because they will never grow as people and will never have real connections in life without being able to think for themselves.

Addiction, Love, Mental Health, parenting, Politics

No one can do everything, and we need to stop telling people that they can.

Katrina Russell

We have to stop telling children, especially little girls, that they can do everything themselves. No one can. We used to understand this. We used to understand the importance of family and marriage and partners, but somewhere along the lines people, and especially girls started being told that they can do everything. That they don’t need anyone else. That, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”, as Irina Dunn coined.

In reality everyone needs people. The family unit was set up as a way of complementing each other’s strengths and working together. It’s easier to share responsibilities than trying to do them all by yourself. This seems like commonsense, but somewhere along the line ego got in the way and suddenly “I can do it myself” became the motto.

This is not to say that there are things that women or men can’t do. Of course most people are capable of anything that they put their minds too, but they can’t do everything. There are only so many hours in a day. There is only so much energy to be expended. Eventually you run out and the person told that they can do everything feels like a failure when they can’t.

Telling someone that they can do everything is similar to telling a child that they can have everything that they want in a store. Say you have $300 and you take a child to Target. You can tell them that they can have anything that they want, they just have to choose. Maybe they pick a giant Lego set, and have $100 left to spend and you tell them, “oh that’s great, why don’t you add a book and a game on top of that”. You leave the store and the child is ecstatic.

Now say you have the same child and the same $300 and you go into Target and tell them they can have everything that they want. Now the kid is loading up cart after cart of everything they could possibly desire in the slightest. You head to the register and start piling things out. Then you tell the cashier to stop when they reach $300. The child is confused. They don’t even know what they got. Maybe the thing they really wanted hasn’t even been taken out of the carriage yet. Now the child is devastated and let down. It’s “The worst birthday ever!” even though they got $300 worth of things they kind of wanted.

This is how we treat people, and especially women today. We tell them to go for everything they want. They go to school, they change majors a few times, they date around a bit, they start to work on a career, and everything seems good. They are getting everything they want. Now they’re 35, and single and thinking, “next on my list: husband and kids”. They look around and all the guys are kind of jerks, or giant children because they have also been told that they can have whatever they want and they just spent the last 20 years getting all the hook ups they could ask for without having to put anything into the relationship or grow up at all. Why should they? The women can handle everything.

Now the woman is like, “ok, clock ticking. I want kids, but I need a man for that. I also want to be able to raise my kids myself and not send them off with the nanny.” The world says, “ok, just find a guy and get started”. But those guys were left in the carriage when you ran out of money and some other girl who knew what she wanted came along and bought him already. The woman is left with what ever was the easiest to throw up on the register first and didn’t actually get a chance to choose.

I know, you’re going to say, “Not all women want to get married. Not all women want kids”. That is true, but most do, and all at least want the opportunity to decide for themselves and not just get left with whatever was in the first carriage.

Instead of telling kids that they can do everything we need to tell them that they can do anything that they choose, and then teach them how to make good choices. Otherwise we’re going to have more and more generations of self medicating, drug addicted, miserable people who think the idea of abortion and government sponsored suicide are great ideas, because, “this is the worst life ever” when you don’t understand how to get what you really want.

photo of woman kneeling in front of gravestone
Giving, grief, Love, Mental Health, parenting

Life after Parents.

Katrina Russell

I see it on social media a lot. A meme that goes something like, “You taught me everything except how to live without you, mom”. I get the idea. I have lost my parents. My son has lost his father. There has been a lot of loss in my life. I miss them every day, but statements like that actually make of my father. Not in the way that you would expect. In fact, the opposite.

I loved my dad. I still love my dad. He was a single parent who raised us in the 70s-90s when single dads just wasn’t a thing. He was one of the strongest people I know. The only one who came close way my Grams who was also a single parent in the 50s and 60s, also when it wasn’t really a thing. My Grams raised my dad to be strong and independent, and though she was always there to help out and take us kids on weekends and vacations (she lived for those times). She also made sure that he was capable of handling it all on his own when he had to.

My dad helped me a lot. He did, and I could never deny that, but the one thing he always told me was that a parent’s job was to raise their children to NOT need them. To raise their children to be independent, because one day the parent would not be there, and the child will become a parent themself and have someone else who needs to be taught the same. “Independence is the greatest gift a parent can give a child.”. It sounds great now, not so much when I was hobbling home from school in the snow… on crutches. But I did it. I got home. I made my way by myself. “There is nothing that you can’t do if you put your mind to it.”. These are the types of phrases that I grew up listening to.

There were a lot of hard times for both my brother and me. We struggled, and we persevered. I admit, I had way more help along the way than my brother did. I think that went along with me being a girl and my dad assuming I would have a man to help me as I got older as well. Well, as of now I do not have a man. I do not have my father. Before I turned 40 I was a single mom and, for all intense and purposes, an orphan. My dad had given me great training though.

When he was sick, I moved back in with him. I helped him with medication. I took him to doctors and hospitals and called the EMTs when necessary. I turned into his emergency contact, and his proxy when he went under for surgery. He was a great father who taught me how to be a great mother. When he died, I was devastated. How could I live without my dad? But I did. I did every day. I got up, took care of my own son. Cleaned out my father’s house. I went to the lawyers to deal with his paperwork. I even took over his business for a while when it suited my needs.

My dad taught me everything. Including how to live without him. It’s not something that I ever wanted, but it was something that everyone knows is going to happen. Many people today do their best to protect their children from anything that may hurt them but hurt is part of living. One day we wake up and we don’t have our parents. One day we wake up and we are the parents. We have to figure it all out. We have to find our own way. Having parents that teach us that we can; that we are capable; that we are strong, those are the best parents. I hope I’m doing that for my son, and I hope he continues to do it for his children.

Being parents, raising kids that are ready and able to take on what the world throws at them. That’s the real struggle, and that’s the real joy. People are always wondering what it’s all for… well that’s what I have found to be it. Making the world that much better, by making a person that is that much better for it.

white concrete building
bullying, Politics, Prayer

It’s not about oppression, it’s about success

Katrina Russell

There has been a lot in the media in the last few years about the oppressed and the oppressors. How certain groups have more power and success in life because they spend all of their time oppressing other people. How there is a new group coming out of the oppressor group in order to “save” the historically oppressed people.

They are doing this by teaching people whether they are oppressed or oppressors, because nothing cures oppression like telling someone that they are oppressed and shouldn’t bother trying. They are also doing this by getting rid of tests and regulations that judge people based on the merit. The implication being that people of certain groups can’t be expected to live up to the expectations of the oppressor groups and therefore are being further oppressed by a society that values merit.

I’m not sure how teaching kids particularly that they are some how incapable of merit based accomplishments eliminates oppression, but that is the point. The people who talk so much about caring about and helping the oppressed don’t actually care about oppression. They only care about who is getting, making, or having more than they are. The goal is not to end oppression, but to oppress the successful in order to steal more power for themselves.

If you ever want to know how someone feels about oppressed people ask them what they think about the Jews, and specifically Israel. Jewish people are the historically the most oppressed people in the world. They were slaves in the age of the Bible. They have been homeless since they were first enslaved. They have been told they can’t work. They have been murdered. They have had an entire world against them, and yet they are the one group of people to never tried to conquer anyone else. That’s actually their thing. They don’t look to convert. They are a race unto themselves not just a religion. They don’t stop those who choose to convert, but they do not send people to your door on a Sunday afternoon, and they have never invaded anyone.

In 1948. after it as discovered that millions of them were killed for no reason, it was decided by the world that they needed a safe place they could call their own. People are angry about this. People are angry because a piece of land that had been historically Abrahamic territory, but was invaded and stolen by others was being returned to them. The same people who complain about Native American land being stolen by white settlers because, “The Natives were there first” complain that the Israelites got their land back. No race has ever been more cohesive than the Jewish people. They are not just a religion but a race as well, and they do their best to keep their way of life unchanged for centuries. Where as the Native Americans were thousands of different tribes who came to the American continent over thousands of years and spent most of that time killing each other to extinction.

Jewish people, however, are known to be hard working. It’s part of their culture. No matter how many times they are knocked down, they keep their heads down and keep working for their families and their faith… and they are hated for it. There is no group in the world so universally hated. There was just a hostage situation in TX in which a Muslim extremist specifically targeted a Synagogue on the Sabbath, and took hostages. The news kind of mentioned something about a UK man taking hostages but they weren’t sure why… it’s over now, it doesn’t really matter.

Except it does. This was a terrorist attack. This was a hate crime. The fact that a Muslim extremist specifically targeted a Synagogue on the holiest day of the week was not a coincidence, but let’s not make people think poorly of Muslim terrorist… that wouldn’t be PC.

If oppression, and not personal choices is what causes inequality and poverty then how does one explain the Jews. They are the doctors, the lawyers, the accountants. They run the banks. They are the evil rich people… who have been historically oppressed by everyone. People don’t want to help the oppress. They just hate the rich. If you don’t believe me. Ask them how they feel about Israel.