Your Are Not Raising Children
In fact, you are raising future grown-ups. Make sure they learn grown-up responsibilities, and are not stuck in childish temper tantrums, self-involvement and short-term gratification-seeking.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't love them. It means that they need to hear "No!" often.
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Are You Biting Your Nails?
February 12, 2011
Don’t.
Of course, that bit of advice is not sufficient – even when you are mortally ashamed that you do bite your nails.
You are in good company: About one third of young children and nearly half of all teenagers bite their nails, and some take it into their adult lives. Doctors have a scientific-sounding name for it – onychophagia (which just means: nail eating) and lump it together with other psychiatric disorders like hair pulling (trichotillomania) and certain eating disorders as an obsessive-compulsive disorder. But I don’t want you to run around with a psychiatry label – I just want to apply a little common sense.
Nail biting is more common in the winter: the skin is dryer, hangnails are more frequent – and before you know you are falling back into the old habit and bite your nails. Once you start, it is hard to stop – it is as if your fingers are screaming to be eaten.
If getting a fancy nail job done, doesn’t help – or if you have similar occupations like I have: doctor, gardener, cello player, neither of which should be done with lacquered fangs – perhaps these few tricks works for you:
• Carry an emery board with you all the time, and as soon as you have a hard spot around your nails, file it away – because those are the precursors of hangnails.
• At least twice a day, rub your hands with coconut oil. Don’t use any petrolatum-based lotion; they make it worse. If you fingertips are nice and soft, there is no reason to start biting. Carry a little container with coconut oil with you (food quality – same as you use for frying).
• Find out what makes you bite – boredom triggers it in me. So, I avoid boredom.
• Ask your friends to remind you not to bite.
• Admire your beautiful unbitten nails. Read More
Berlin – About Friendship
October 5, 2010
I don’t know how I would have made it through my life without my girlfriends.
When I was younger, a girlfriend and I had a saying: “Love is more important, but friendship lasts longer.”
After a few false starts, I have found a wonderful man in my life. But my friendships with women still sustain me through rocky times. And give me much laughter.
Without the advice and support of other women, how would I ever have raised my children? Every little domestic disaster was talked through – and the big ones too. When I had my first child, I was all alone without any friends – living in our little nuclear family, talking to nobody outside, burying myself in reading. Nowadays, I think they would diagnose me with depression. But I know I was not depressed – I was without friends.
Presently, I am visiting Berlin that are filled with women friends for me, friends from far, far back, newer friends, and some in the middle. The last few days, I have reconnected with several old friends, having so much fun. During long walks, over tea or a good meal we told each other what happened in our lives since we met last time, we laughed and were touched.
Men seem to discuss work and politics, fishing and farting (not that I really know what their subjects are when they are alone!). Women talk about life and love and death, about childbirth, boyfriends, menopause, children and old parents. About work too because we all have deep interests. Even politics we mention occasionally.
What makes a good friendship? If you haven’t seen each other for a while – or many years – it is a sign of solid friendship if you click again the moment you meet. No repercussions why it took so long – just pure bliss that you are together again.
Recently in Iran, a made new friends who will stay friends for many years to come. Berlin has renewed some old friendships. New and old friends, they make you examine your life. Without them, life is not worth living. Read More