I’ve read some great stuff around the web lately, and I thought I’d do a round-up for you today!
50 Shades of Grey
First, the marriage blogosphere is all abuzz with 50 Shades of Grey posts! I pointed to some in my original post about how 50 Shades of Grey is bad for marriage, but here are some others that are worth reading:
Kathryn Casey asks at Forbes magazine (a secular site), Is 50 Shades of Grey Dangerous? Great to see people talking about this even from outside a Christian perspective.
Anthropology and Love gets to the heart of the matter–images never leave your brain. And here’s her follow-up, where she throws in Magic Mike for good measure! Great explanation of how God’s design that women FEEL so deeply can impact us when we expose ourselves to media like this.
Thoughts on Porn
My posts on porn keep getting new–and often heart-wrenching–comments. When I saw this older post at Intimacy for Marriage, I thought many of you would appreciate it:
My Love Letter to Pornographers (read on to the end!)
J at Hot, Holy and Humorous chimes in with Why the Church Needs to Talk More about Sex. She’s absolutely right! And we need to talk about why porn is a temptation for so many.
School’s Out!
And it’s a good thing. Some rotten stories about schools have hit the news lately. Here are just a few:
The mother of two albino children is livid that the teacher refused to let her kids put on sunscreen (that the mom sent) during a school field trip. The children later had to be hospitalized. The reason? No doctor’s note.
A teenager having an asthma attack is denied his inhaler by the school nurse because she couldn’t locate the paperwork. She didn’t call 911, either. She just stood there, with the inhaler, while the boy passed out in front of her.
The father of an autistic boy puts a digital recorder in his son’s backpack to record what is happening at school–and picks up horrendous abuse by teacher and teacher’s aide.
I know only the bad stuff hits the news, but these kind of stories make me mourn common sense and decency.
Parenting Stuff
At the risk of opening old wounds, here’s an article on 8 steps to help your baby sleep through the night. I agree with most, though I didn’t feed my baby to a time schedule. I simply made sure they ate a ton at each feeding, so that they would go longer between feedings. No snacking! And I did have a baby who would go to sleep late and get up early–and if I switched the bedtime earlier, she wouldn’t sleep later. Other than that, though, I agree with most of these tips! And getting your baby to sleep is so important to your marriage.
Oldies But Goodies
Every now and then I head over to Pinterest to see which posts from this blog people have pinned. It’s always interesting to see what ones people like! And I was reminded recently of some older posts that I actually really like. Here are some you may have missed that are worth checking out:
Maybe Balance isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be. Are we aiming for the wrong thing?
Accepting Yourself As You Are. No, you may not have met all your goals. But it’s likely because you’ve made new ones!
Some great things you can catch up on! Have any links you want to share with us? Just leave them in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
This link on Magic Mike went a little viral on Facebook; it’s pretty good.
http://mrsgoresdiary.com/2012/07/08/magic-mike-who/
Oh wow! I love that!
Oh wow….I love your blog but that link about sleeping babies is full of such bad advice. Baby cereal? Horrible for babies’ stomachs and health. Feed them a bottle? I realize there might be extenuating circumstances warranting bottle feeding, but this article never even mentioned breast feeding. Scheduling baby? When does baby get to have a growth spurt, or nurse for comfort when he’s sick? To me; the article came off so authoritarian and condescending to parents who want to take a more natural ( not lazy!) route. We have such a different mindset in western culture about how sleeping arrangements are “supposed” to go, when traditional cultures did not have “nurseries”. Babies used to sleep with mama all the time.
I agree. There is no way I am putting my baby’s health and well being at risk simply so I can sleep. No matter how tired I am, I make sure I am there for hubby, anyway. Babyhood is such a short period of time. If my marriage suffers or my husband looks to other outlets because I am up breast feeding at 2 am, then we have bigger problems than baby not sleeping through the night. When hubby has to work late, or away from home or is overly tired, no one tells him to stop it for the sake of our marriage. Why should I stop doing my job AND put my baby at risk?
I wouldn’t say the article is full of horrible advice – most of it is actually very good advice. Just because you disagree with one or two points doesn’t mean you should disregard (or bash) all of the points. Nevertheless, every parent has their own way of parenting, and most people do an excellent job parenting their babies. I think the point of linking the article was for those who may be having trouble getting baby to sleep and are looking for a way to solve it. If you don’t have those problems, great! Every bit of parenting advice should be taken with a grain of salt and put your own parenting instincts to use.
I have a kindle fire that my husband bought for me last year…love it!!! But I’m finding that I the things I download are more Christian based self-helps like “The Good Girl’s guide to great sex” or Christian novels. It’s all about being selective with what you download. The option to download a chapter prior to purchase is there and if you question whether it’s something I should read I choose that. A friend told me about 50 Shade of Grey and I briefly thought about reading it and then someone else told me the premise of the stories and then I read your post…and knew it was NOT something I needed to read. 5 minutes of research about reading/viewing material can save a lot of problems in the future.
I checked out that article on Fifty Shades of Grey that you linked to. I find it amazing that, even from a secular viewpoint, the book is just plain dangerous…and I agree. Anytime a sadistic man is portrayed as a hero, it will have a warping effect.
Thanks again for taking a stand on this very important issue, Sheila!
Lisa
sadistic man PORTRAYED AS ‘HERO’ —-CREATED the COLORADO MASSACRE……..Hollywood needs to go back to a form of the Hayes Code (1933-1966)
I’m horrified at the articles about situations at schools. I’m thankful that we have choices, whether public, private or home.
Love the links! I especially loved the one about talking about sex in the church. I have been talking a lot with a friend of mine about it – God is definitely putting that issue on my heart again and again! Now I just have to figure out what to do about it. Sharing that link might be a good first step.
Sheila
Thanks for linking to my blog! I kept checking back once you told me that you would be doing this post but I had no idea it’d be right in the middle of your post! So awesome 🙂 Got your book by the way, haven’t had a chance to start reading. But I can’t wait!
Amanda Riley
I recently wrote about Shade of Grey on my blog. I know so many Christian women who are reading this series and think it’s perfectly acceptable to do so. I can’t disagree more!
http://mdunn43019.blog.com/
Excellent blog post. 🙂 I’m with you – it’s actually starting to make me physically sick to my stomach how many Christian women are justifying reading those books. The phrase “to each his own” is being thrown around a lot and that’s just plain wrong. God never said “to each his own” in scripture – we are called to a higher standard. Period.
I’m glad that when you mentioned accepting ourselves, you said that we probably haven’t met all our goals because we’ve probably made new ones. There have been lots of discussions with the young women in my church especially about being as patient with yourself as you would be with someone else. Often the discussion turns into how we should be “content with ourselves” and “happy the way we are”. I always want to say “NO! Do not be content! Love yourself, and be patient with yourself, but don’t settle for less when you have so much potential!” I feel like sometimes we turn accepting ourselves into giving up on ourselves and becoming complacent.
Thanks for a good thought for the day. I haven’t met all of my goals. Thats because I’m still making more! 🙂
Oh, Sheila! How did you get to be so wise? I hope I’m like you when I get where you are in life… Kudos & blessings to you.
“Bash”? I think that is overstating it just a bit. That implies I used some sort of abusive or harsh wording, which I didn’t. I care a lot about my testimony and would not want to bash anything that was not outright ungodly, especially when it was posted by someone like Sheila, whom I respect very much, and who also posted it in a spirit of “hey, maybe this will help someone”. The article, however, was not written in that spirit. The tone of it was very “tsk-tsk” towards anyone who might do things differently than the author describes, suggesting that parents will regret not doing things her way. I have seven children, so I pretty much have the baby thing down. My concern was with new moms, and especially breast feeding ones. Breast milk, being God’s perfect food for babies, and so easily digested, is gone within about 2 hours in a rapidly growing infant. Generally It is not ok for breasted babies to be “scheduled” to 3-4 hours, especially not before they are having solids. For the breast feeding mother, this article is full of bad advice. I did not say everything in the article is bad. I disagree with 4-5 things in the article, so yes, I do believe it is “full” of bad advice, since much of it is not historically or biologically supported.
And Sheila, I wanted to say “thank you” for your ministry. Your 29 days of Great Sex was what broke my husband and I out of our mediocre sex life. Hubby thanks you too! Lol.
You’re so welcome, Stephanie! And tell your husband he’s welcome, too!
y’know…Messy Mike & 50 sKAnks of Grey could REALLY MESS UP your married sex life….might even make HIM impotent..young men are becoming that way thru masturbation….these images never leave the mind; even if u stop looking @ PORN!…..FAST & PRAY 4 your MARRIAGE!