5 Financial Tips for Starting a Family
​By: Daniel Enayatzadeh

Are you thinking of starting a family?

If you and your partner are exploring the possibility of having children, it’s important to prepare for the financial impact your new little one will bring!


The following are a few key points to keep in mind:



1. Maternal and parental benefits:

In my experience, the very first decision couples tackle with is how they're going to adjust their lives and schedules to accommodate the new addition to their family. In some cases, the income they’ve been accustomed to may decrease, please see my points #2 and #3 for more. Gaining a solid understanding of the Quebec maternal and parental insurance plan is the first step in a plan for the future. Please see the following link which includes a benefits calculator. It can provide a good idea as to how much money you can expect to receive. http://www.rqap.gouv.qc.ca/ 



 2. Understanding your budget:


Whether or not you’ve been following a detailed budget, you can pretty much throw it out the window! Just joking! Hold onto it because you will likely need to adjust it. Have a sit down with your partner and determine what your pre and post baby costs are. This is an important step in creating a game plan, as well as knowing what you can expect, especially when your incomes may experience a temporary adjustment. 



3. Emergency fund:

Children come with all kinds of unexpected expenses. Setting aside some cash, that’s not invested anywhere and available at a moment’s notice will provide you with the peace of mind to tackle the unexpected.




4. Tackle your credit card debt:

You can also consider speaking to your bank or a mortgage broker about consolidating your loans. 




5. Talk to a friend:

Before you go on a shopping spree for all those baby accessories and items, talk to a friend who’s been through it and ideally bring them with you shopping. It can help narrow down the necessities. 


​

Last but certainly not least,
book a meeting
with your financial advisor!
 
-Daniel

 
The cost of this kind of immature action is:

The Loss Of Your Credibility 

Oh The Guilt...Sex and the City Season 6
Written by: Pillow Talk Gal


It’s one of the most challenging things any mother (single or not) has to learn to cope with:


How to balance motherhood/family life and a career.


For nine months we go through pregnancy, coping with our ever changing bodies, preparing for the day when baby will arrive. We setup the room; making sure we have every detail taken care of (baby clothes, toys, strollers, car seats, etc...).


Before you know it the day has arrived and you are happier than you ever thought possible. You bring your new bundle of joy home and you learn what being a mom entails (little to no sleep, what seems like endless diaper changes and cleaning clothes, bottles and other baby related paraphernalia).


Eventually you get the hang of the whole baby thing (schedule and otherwise) and you’ve hit your stride. You have it all together. You feel like you have this baby thing under control and you are the super hero of moms (at the very least a side kick).

​

Then the day you’ve been dreading more than the labour pains, hits.


You have to go back to your job.


Suddenly, you have to trade in your mom card and go back to being ‘’professional’’ you.

You hand in your diaper genie and get an upgrade to a briefcase.
​

It feels weird, unnatural and somehow all wrong!


In season 6 of Sex and the City (episode 6- Hop, Skip and a Jump) Miranda is facing just such a challenge. She has been back to work for a little while now and has acquired help from her trusted house keeper, Magda, to look after her infant son Brady.  


One morning, Miranda is running late for work when Magda arrives at the apartment to start her day.


​As all working mothers must do, Miranda relinquishes care of Brady to the help and sets off on her day to work.


As she is leaving, Brady begins to howl at seeing his mama leave his sight. Although she knows she loves her job, Miranda is riddled with guilt at leaving her baby boy.


None the less, she sets of on her long day of work.



Later that day, Miranda is summoned to a meeting (for which she believes involves a case she has been working tirelessly on for her law firm). She arrives in a bit of a rush and immediately begins to give the partners of the firm her assessment of how her case is going.


They quickly interrupt her, informing her that the meeting is with regards to her work performance and not her cases.



They mention that they have noticed her missing time, being late for meetings and leaving early on certain occasions.  Miranda, being the ultimate professional she is, makes no excuses for herself and states that those issues will no longer be a problem. She also takes the time to mention (you know, casually in passing) that as a lawyer, her performance has been unflawed but as a mother she felt like a failure.


​She gracefully leaves the room, and takes the time to remind the partners that when her mother passed, she happened to be at work the following Monday (only having missed 1 day).  
 


That evening, Miranda rushes home in the hopes of being able to spend some quality time with Brady. As she arrives home, she proclaims ‘’I’m here, I’m here!’’ to Magda, but to her disappointment Miranda discovers that Brady has been in bed for the past hour.


She is so disappointed not only to find out that she missed spending time with her son, but also at herself.



She feels like a failure as a parent!



Why is it so difficult being a working mother?


It’s such a struggle to be successful at both. The more time we spend being good at one, the more time we end up feeling like a failure at the other.



Is there a happy medium?



The business world places so much emphasis on being successful at our careers and there is so much pressure to perform.


On the other hand, choosing to spend time and invest in our children is seen as slacking off. 


When a working mom needs to leave work because their child is sick, it is often met with scorn and disapproval (from colleagues and superiors a like).


If there happens to be an occasion where a mother needs a day off to attend an event for their child, they are often either denied this opportunity, or are forced to lie about the reasons they need the day off (for example ‘’my car broke down’’, ‘’I was robbed’’, you get the idea).


The business world invests millions of dollars everyday into a multitude of business ventures, so how is it they don’t put the same value on investing into children, who essentially are our future leaders.


Why does society shun stay at home moms instead of praising them for raising well rounded kids?


It would be nice to have an equal balance of both worlds (family and career) so that working women could avoid the feeling of failure all together and just feel fulfilled, all the while enjoying success both in and outside of the family unit.

About Pillow Talk Gal

Born and raised in British Columbia, she is a professional woman managing a career, marriage, and a teenager. Life can be challenging at times but she's a firm believer that everything in life happens for a reason, and more often than not, she tries to understand those reasons. 

"Join me in my journey throughout life’s issues and I guarantee you’ll be left pondering an issue or two."  - Pillow Talk Gal

To read Pillow Talk Gal's last post, click HERE
​

The Power of the Yoga Community and the Drive-By Divorce
 By Carrie Joyner
 
The main idea when I created my yoga and fitness studio was to build a community of like-minded people; people who loved yoga, people who wanted to get healthy and fit and strong…mind, body and soul.


I had no idea how important this community would become to me until about 2 weeks after opening the doors and had just experienced a drive by divorce.


If you have ever started or owned a business, you probably know how stressful it is.


You bet it all on red, dedicate months or years (in my case it took about 2 years of planning, financing and finding the perfect location, location, location) to even get to the point where you could actually consider it being “in business”.


Add on to that the end of a marriage that involved a 4 year old son, and it was a recipe for disaster.
 

So what is a drive-by divorce?

 
It’s getting a text from your husband asking you to come outside at lunch time.

I told him to just come into the studio, I had a pole dancing class going on and wanted to make sure all went well.

Then it’s getting another text saying “please, it’s really important…”, so I went outside.

I was greeted by the black Mercedes SUV, opened the door, got in and found my now ex-husband staring at me with red eyes and tear stains on his custom fit Armani suit.

He didn’t say much as he drove literally to the other end of the parking lot, where he parked the car and looked at me and said “You aren’t in love with me anymore, and I am not in love with you…we are getting a divorce.”


Simple as that.


The conversation was a bit of a blur.

I remember it not being a conversation, more of a speech.

I asked him what his next move was, and he said it was to go home and get his stuff.

He was moving into a  near-by hotel, it’s just over.


My only concern at this point was not me, but our son. I said “What about Shane? What do we tell Shane?” “Nothing”, he said, “tell him I am on a business trip until I figure it out.”


I got in my jeep and drove far, far away- not wanting my clients or staff to see me crying.
I headed to my best friends house on auto-pilot. She wasn’t there, so I headed back to the studio and did a few more hours of work like a robot.


I couldn’t think, move, feel….breathe.


It was a sucker punch to the heart.

I thought things were getting better, he said they were.

Apparently not.


The next few days were a blur.

I was in shock but trying to act like things were normal for my son, who was totally out of the loop.

Every morning I woke up, took my son to daycare, went to the studio and tried to get through the day.


Working on and at the studio proved to be the perfect distraction.



I was an open door kind of girl, and anyone- staff, client, teacher, etc. knew that they could always pop in and say hi or talk to me. This revolving door of mostly females became my tribe. Literally. I would tell them what was going on if they had the intuition or inclination to ask, and I would repeat the story a million times over.


Not only did I find women who had been through the same or a similar situation and even some men, but I found a sounding board and it became like therapy to me.


Between emotionally fuelled lawyer visits to trying to be zen and teaching my yoga classes, my studio became more than a studio.


It became my happy place.



When we were under construction, I wanted a big executive office in the back room with cameras and an intercom-but I ended up putting my tiny desk in a tiny closet right off the lounge and reception area, so I actually sacrificed luxury for the benefit of hearing every conversation, every client at the desk and being 10 feet away from my staff at any given time.
 


Which leads me to Merissa.

 
I heard a woman freaking out at the desk about a canceled Pilates class.

We used Mind Body software, which allowed us to see who had registered for what class, so if there was a cancellation for whatever reason, we could contact them to notify them of the cancellation. She did not register, but showed up at the “regular” time and was livid that the class had been cancelled.

I think the teacher was sick and we couldn’t find a sub. Whatever the case was, I decided to go out and talk to her. I asked her if she wanted some tea.

We sat in the lounge and sipped on tea as she vented about how far she’d come expecting to do her class and go home and make dinner.

I apologized, things happen sometimes that are out of control.

I guess she saw that I wasn’t my normal bubbly self and asked if I was alright.


I said no, not really.


I was a little overwhelmed with what had happened. I explained what I was going through and in the blink of an eye she went from an angry client to a person with the best words of advice I have yet to hear.

She told me about one of her best friends who had been married to a pilot, and he did the same thing.

In this case, there was another woman involved.


What she told me next wouldn’t change my life, but it did change my outlook on everything.


 
She said “the best thing you can do right now is take care of yourself and your son.

Get yourself into the best physical shape you have ever been in, focus on being happy and spoiling yourself.

Don’t do this to make him feel bad, do it to make you feel amazing and not sit there thinking about the why’s and the poor me’s.”



This did not make everything better. It did not change the situation or my grieving process.


But after Merissa, I talked to literally hundreds of women, of every age, who had similar stories.


I stopped feeling like I was the only person this had ever happened to.


I started to let go of the blame and anger and I started to feel really, really connected to every person who walked through my doors.


We all have a story.

 
We do.


Once we learn to embrace the fact that everyone is going through, has gone through, or will go through a life altering struggle- we become one.



That community that I started building became my pillar of strength in a trying time.


They say everything happens for a reason. I believe it. 


-Carrie Joyner

​

​
​Towards Polyamory? A Personal And Unfinished Journey
By Ken
 
Polyamory is a new term and concept for me. 
 
It has arisen in my consciousness as the result of an ongoing search for meaning in my life, and as a term that represents a new way of looking at relationships, commitment, fidelity, sexual freedom and personal values.
 

For me it encompasses feelings of fear and insecurity, but also feelings of belonging, connectedness and liberation from old patterns and stifling conventionalities.

 
I am thinking about polyamory, among a number of relationship options, as a viable and possibly joyful form of intimate engagement with others.
 

First, a bit of background. 


I am a 64 year old gay man. 

I came out in my late 40s – a late bloomer by any definition. 
 
I had a good (sometimes very good) 27 year marriage with a loving woman, and together we raised two daughters.

 
However (and I suppose this is “a tale as old as time”, as the song goes) there were increasingly protracted  periods of depression and frustration as it became clearer to me that this identity was untenable, and I left my marriage.

 
I set out on a new path.

 
In the meantime, I retired and moved from Saskatchewan to my place of birth, Nova Scotia. 
 
Of course, leaving my identity in Saskatchewan as a heterosexual family man, as a worker and more recently as a member of a GLBTQ community, had its challenges and adaptations, but today I am in an almost 4 year relationship with a loving man.

 
However, there are still stirrings of discontent and frustration.

 
I am still on a journey of discovery, unpeeling layers of personal history - genetics, upbringing, the aging process - and within that context attempting to carve out a life that represents who I am.

 
Who, in fact, am I, and what do I want?

 
My partner and I introduced the idea of non-monogamy into our conversation about two years ago.

 
In those two years we have experimented, including others in our sexual lives, both separately and as a couple.
 

My partner wanted the experience of variety, and I wanted to find a less rigid and conventional means of expressing my sexuality.

 
We have stopped and started this process a couple of times, due primarily to my discomfort. We have very different views about sex.

 
For my partner, sex is sex, a recreational activity whose goal is mutual pleasure.
 
Nothing more.
 
It does not involve emotion or any level of commitment (other than the potential for FWB: Friends-with-benefits).
 

For me, sex is about connection and belonging, intimacy and meaning. Sex is about love and friendship and commitment.
 

So we come to polyamory, the concept of experiencing more than one intimate partner, of sharing lives in a deep and meaningful way with multiple participants, and of enlarging and engaging with one’s notion of relationship.

 
For me this is a fraught process.

 
The very idea of engaging intimately with someone other than one’s partner, and other than in fantasy, has been utterly foreign to me.

 
The process of expanding my sexual contacts has pushed so many buttons – insecurity, confidence, value judgements, fear, anxiety, aging and sexual performance, abandonment, aloneness, jealousy, social censure.


 
On the other hand, I firmly believe that we should never expect one person to satisfy all our needs – a huge responsibility to place on another’s shoulders, and an abrogation of our own responsibility for our own lives.


 
This part of my personal journey, undertaken at a time when many people are questioning the meaning of their lives as they settle into old age, remains unfinished.

 
In my worst moments, I feel a sense of extreme anxiety, and sadness and loss at the discarding of values and beliefs by which I was raised and to which I subscribed throughout my life.
 

In my best moments I look forward with optimism and excitement to the expansion of possibilities in relationship and connection.


 
 
Author Bio:

Ken was born and raised in Nova Scotia, and after working in Western Canada for almost 30 years, retired and returned home to the Halifax area. He is a painter, gardener, reader and cat herder.

The Difference Between Jokes and Abuse In Raising A Child
By Frank Kermit
 
A joke is not a joke if it hurts someone.

With April 1st (known as April Fools Day) upon us, it can be customary for some to play a prank on the people we care about, all in the name of harmless fun.
 
However, in my practice I see a more sinister side of this day, and the premise that it is based on. When people use April Fools Day to justify a repeating behavior pattern of meanness and bullying, it is no joke. It is abuse plain and simple.
 
The emotional damage that can occur when humor is used as a mask for abuse is serious.

Ask any trauma counselor.

I worked on programs with special populations (adults with autism and other developmental challenges), and also counsel trauma victims in my coaching practice. I see and deal with the damage done to people when just having fun at the expense of a human being goes without context.
 
In most of those cases, the people having fun do NOT acknowledge that what they do is wrong, and are usually people who actually care (or are suppose to) about their targets.


The worst is when those jokes are perpetuated on children, where most people first learn about the blurred connections between humor, jokes and harmful acts.
 

Although children have a wonderful sense of playfulness that does not mean that children can distinguish the context of when a joke is a joke and when a joke can be harmful.


A child laughs at cartoon characters kicking each other in the butt (just watch old Chip And Dale cartoons for an example). However, when a child mimics that same behaviors on his daycare classmates, it is not funny to the kids being kicked.

Those innocent interpretations of children can grow up into emotional blocks for grown ups.


"My mother regularly told me that I was a mistake as a joke", says the adult man who has trouble holding on to a job.


"My brother used to call me fat as a joke all the time", says the adult woman who is dying from an eating disorder.
 

Let us first start off with a major concept.
 
Children are like sponges in the way they absorb information. There is no such thing as a time to play and then a time to learn. Children are ALWAYS in learning mode.
 

If you were to consider thinking of playtime as merely a different mode of learning, you may start to get a grasp of just how important socialization is to the development and education of a child.

This is one of the reasons why new educational endeavor seek to employ entertainment values in lesson planning.
 

When children are exposed to abuse under the form of humor, it is just as much an education about how to relate to themselves and each other, as sitting in a classroom and following a prepared lesson by a teaching professional.

 
Children who are the target of jokes may be learning something negative if the context of the joke is in anyway hurtful. If the teasing is coming from other children who have already set themselves up to be categorized as enemies, it may carry a certain message (i.e. the problem is the other children, not the child being targeted).
 

However if the teasing is coming from the best friends or even family of the targeted child, the message could end up being that if the people who are suppose to love the child actually hate the child, then child is unlovable.

This can be especially heinous when the teasing is actually tolerated or even encouraged by the people around the child who would normally be expected to protect the child.
 

As I teach this in my program,  THE ART OF CALIBRATION PROGRAM: FROM CREEPY TO CHARISMA EBOOK: A key component if you are struggling to decide if something would be a harmless joke or if something may constitute a form of abuse or mistreatment is to ask one question:


Would the person who is being targeted be laughing at the joke being played on him or her?


If the answer is yes, then it is all in fun.

If the person who is being targeted is not finding it as funny as the prankster, then it is abuse.
 


At the heart of this question, is the question of consent.


Would the person you are playing the joke on consent to it?

If there is consent, it is a shared experience.

When there is no consent, the joke can cross the line and become an act of violence or abuse (even name calling is an act of verbal abuse).

To make it even more abundantly clear, if you are unable to accurately predict if the person you are targeting would fully consent, then take that as a sign not to pull the joke.

 

The absence of consent is what makes it abuse.


​ 
One question I have been asked is whether or not it is alright to make fun of someone, or laugh at someone, provided the person would never find out about it.

If a person does not know he or she is being made fun of, then no feelings can be hurt, and would that make it OK?


​The answer is no.
 

It does not matter if the person being made fun of, laughed at, or having a prank played upon them does not know it. It is still wrong. To use a relational analogy, it is still cheating if you have promised fidelity to someone, regardless if the other partner never finds out.
 

Whether it is making fun of the introverted neighbors down the street, a celebrity on the Internet, strangers on Youtube videos, or the shy kid in class that does not know how to defend herself, having fun at someone's expense, even if they do not know about it, still does not change the fact that it is a hurtful act you knowingly commit.
 

So before you play a joke or prank on someone you love (or a stranger for that matter), just stop.
 

Especially if the person is a child, or simply does not like being made fun of. There are many ways to share an experience with someone you care about, and better ways for you to show that you care than poking fun at them.

​ 
April Fools Day is not an excuse to be a bully.

 
Frank Kermit ​

A Letter to My Son on his Ninth Birthday
By M.J. Di Rocco
 
My son, Love is the faith from which everything starts.

Love is what I chose to tell my stories about. Love, compassion and understanding. But I believe if you choose love, then choose it wholly and know that it's not always simple or clear.
 
I've watched you grow for nine years and every single day that passes I am amazed at your beauty and brilliance.
 
You give me hope.
 
Your generation gives this sad, angry planet its best hope.
 
Now, don't feel intimated, don't feel overwhelmed.

Just remember that you are loved. No matter where you are in the world love exists, even if it is in the tiniest crack in the tiniest pebble, love exists and it will grow if you nurture it.
 
Your father is a Canadian with Italian heritage, your mother is Japanese. We all live in Japan. I know that sometimes you have questions about your identity. Sometimes you're confused. And that's natural.

Believe it or not, sometimes I'm confused too.

Everyone gets confused from time to time.

But, I know this: Love exists in confusion.

Love exists in Japan, love exists Canada, in Italy. Love exists everywhere.
 
And for all the differences of culture between Canada and Japan parents love their children. There is nothing so natural as a parent's love for their children. If you're anything like your father (and I get a feeling you are) you need to discover things on your own--that's your way of understanding the world, discovering things your own way at your own pace. And there is nothing wrong with that.
 
Know, though, that I will always be there watching and ready to extend a hand if the fall is too high. Explore life, my son, explore this world, but do it with love in your heart. Everything you do, do with love in your heart. And the more love you show, the more love you see.
 
You have questions about your mixed heritage, your background. I don't have any better answers than what you will discover for yourself. I really believe that, fundamentally, everyone is the same. We all need to love and need to be loved. We all need a purpose and love provides a purpose, even if it's painful and hopeless at times.
 
Japanese, Canadian, Italian, we are all human.
 
We are all capable of love and we are all beautiful. And remember that in your darkest moments:
WE ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL and don't let the hurt challenge your love.
 
Love is powerful. Love is humanity and we are all human.


MJ Di Rocco is an author and filmmaker. He has produced and directed three feature films and a dozen music videos and has previously published one book of poetry. He lives in Japan where he stumbled upon teaching and has chosen to teach kindergarten and lecture at university. The Tale of Bunny The Frog is his first children's book and is a story about self-acceptance and accepting others. He can be reached at mjdirocco1@gmail.com 

Read M.J.'s  previous article The Story Behind The Tale of Bunny The Frog

Purchase M.J.'s  Book The Tale of Bunny The Frog through: Amazon Canada

Click To Buy The Tale of Bunny The Frog

M. J.  Di Rocco wrote the introduction to The Frank StoryTelling Program For Dating Workbook

How to Guarantee A Divorce
By Frank Kermit
 

When wedding season is upon us, I get couples coming in for some pre-marital coaching. This process, usually in private couples coaching, but sometimes as a group class is to get couples to ask one another very important questions, the answers to which may even end their engagement.


The goal is to build a rock solid foundation for the marriage so that when tough times trouble the couple, the couple has the best possible odds to stay strong and steady until the storm passes.


One of the components that  I teach in my coaching workbooks for men and women, "I'm A Man, That's My Job" and "I'm a Woman, It's My Time" in this process is the rule of putting a life partner ahead of your own extended family and friends.
 

In dealing with couples on the verge of a break up or divorce, as well as, separated and divorced individuals who are starting over, a remarkably clear pattern became identifiable.


One of the key components that the individual asking for the break listed as a primary reason for ending the relationship was a feeling that a partner put the wants and needs of extended family members and friends ahead of the needs of a spouse and even their children.
 

It is important for new couples getting married to understand that the number one person in your life is your spouse:

• It is not your parents,
• it is not your siblings,
• and it is not your nieces, or nephews,
• not your uncles, or aunts,
• not your cousins,
• not your grandparents
• and NOT your friends.

If you end up in the middle of a conflict between having to choose what it best for your spouse or what is best for anyone else, you better choose your spouse if you want your marriage to survive as you must be able to trust in your spouse that your spouse would choose for you.
 

In the most basic of terms, it is you and your spouse against the world. You come together in marriage to form a partnership to build a common future, a family unit, and to have each other's best interest in mind because it is expected that the two of you have already discussed and agreed upon achieving similar life goals.


These conversations should have covered family planning, careers, retirement, lifestyle and coping with any known and potential obstacles to those plans as well as agreed upon sacrifices necessary to make all of those goals happen.

If you haven't given any thought to these core goal oriented communications, you will be thinking about them while you are in the process of splitting up.


Ironically, the very questions you are asking yourself about your partner during a divorce are the same one you both needed to talk about during your engagement.

 

There is only one exception to this rule...if you already have young kids when you are getting married.


At that point, your kids who rely on you and have no one else to depend on take priority over your new spouse.

​
Your spouse is an adult that got to choose to be with you and must accept your priority to be a parent to your children.


However your children did not have the choice of having you as a parent and you may be the only person your children have to give a damn about giving them a decent start to life.


In the future I will write an article for child-free adults who date single parents and how to navigate realistic expectations of step-parenthood.


 
Check Out The Benefits of Frank Coaching and Sign Up (Especially if you just got Engaged!)