relationships – Page 2

Bicycle Built for Two

This month, I’m including an article from my husband’s web site, Intermin.org. Agreement is the strength of any marriage. I hope you will be blessed.

Diane

“We had this bicycle,” the lady said. “It was built for two people to ride together. What problems that bicycle caused us!”

“How so?” I asked?

“Well, my husband would ride behind me, on the back seat. I always rode in the front seat and steered. But he wouldn’t peddle! He just let me do all the work. When I applied the brake, then he would start peddling!”

Now, this husband worked against his wife only to tease her, but in many marriages the husband and wife fight against each other over much more serious issues. Rather than making a joint effort towards a common goal, they end up battling for their rights. Each of them has an individual goal and tries to make their spouse go in their direction, at their pace. Marriage becomes a struggle rather than a partnership.

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Healing Encouraging Words

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Today’s newsletter is not about speaking a language like Russian or Swahili or Tamil. It is about the language of love. My husband wrote this article for married couples, but the principles apply to conversations in our family, among our staff, and even with nationals. Our words are powerful.

How old were you when you learned to talk? Very verbal children might say their first words at 10 months. By age two you probably had a vocabulary of 100 to 200 words, and the ability to form simple sentences. So you might say that you’ve been saying words all your life. But the real question is, “What have those words done?” Sure, millions of them, even most of them, are gone and forgotten, having served their momentary purpose. Others, though, had profound and lasting consequences.

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TCK: Masterpiece or Mess?

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While we are parenting our children in a cross cultural setting, it is difficult to know whether we are doing it right or not. One of our best sources of information about how living outside our home culture affects our children is hearing from adult children of PWs. Kim Holland recently shared some insights about her cross cultural experience. She is writing more and will from time-to-time share more with Peter’s Wife. Kim was a TCK(Third Culture Kid). She grew up in Argentina and currently works as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner in Lawton, OK, USA.

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Long Distance Grandmothering

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We want to thank three PWs for sharing their experiences with long-distance grandmothering.

Home-side Grandmothering of PW Kids
Lisa wrote:

I appreciate my mother and mother-in-law more each time we are back in the US. They are more important in the lives of my daughters than they would be if we lived a “normal” American life, and I think we all realize that. Because we live our lives in a cross-cultural setting, they make a big contribution by giving our children a kind of foundation in American culture, in a loving, wholesome way. Our lives are characterized by a high level of mobility, and yet Grandma’s house, Grandma’s hugs, Grandma’s cooking are a constant in our daughters’ memories.

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