Let the Holiday Headaches Begin!
By Frank Kermit

You have been dating your new partner for a few weeks now, and your timeline has stumbled upon the holiday season. The holiday season means parties. Family parties, company parties, client-related parties, friends-traveling into town for dinner parties…should you bring your new relationship partner with you? Or should you go solo and wait until next year?

The answer is: It Depends.

The criteria you need to consider before you bring your new partner to meet your friends, co-workers and especially your family at a function is if you are ready to go public with the nature of your relationship. That’s it. If you are not prepared to introduce your partner as “your partner”, you do not bring your partner along. And before the label-haters (those people that can not stand putting a label on their romantic exchanges) start gunning down my throat, consider this: It will be easier on you, your partner, and everyone that your partner will be introduced too.

If you are not going to introduce your partner as your actual partner, then do not bring him or her. The worst thing you can do is to bring your partner to a function and introduce your partner to everyone there as your “friend”.


First of all, introducing your partner as “your friend” makes it awkward for everyone. You are not fooling anyone. People will make three assumptions:
 
(1) you are dating but do not want to admit it because there is something wrong with your relationship,
 
(2) one of you wants to date the other but the other is not interested enough, or
 
(3) you are both just pathetic because you would rather hang out with a platonic friend instead of making the effort to actually find your own legitimate partner.
 
Which would you prefer? Personally, I have been in all three situations, and I can tell you from experience that none of them make you feel good at the end of the night.
 
One of the stories I often hear during my coaching is about the person who brings a “friend” they are interested in to a function, like a work party, and end up having to bite their tongues when co-workers start to flirt, hit on and aggressively try to attract “the friend”.
 
After all, if you aren’t willing to admit that you are more than “just friends” (or that you would want to be), then your “friend” is fair game. Do not put the focus of your affection into a potentially compromising social position.


If you are still at the point of having to introduce your partner as “your friend” at any functions, then do everyone a favor: Wait until next year, and bring your partner along to the future holiday functions if you are still together, and publicly open as a couple.


Frank Kermit 

 Holidays and Inter-Faith Families
By Frank Kermit
 
The number of interfaith families is growing. It is likely that you or someone you know has been involved at some point in an inter-faith relationship. Love may be blind, but the challenges some couples face in inter-faith marriages can be very real.
 
According to Dr Sheila Gordon, president of Interfaith Community, religions aren’t really set up to accommodate people creating households where there are two different faiths. She suggests that parents should discuss with each other, their goals of the religion as it regards their children and what aspects of the religion they want to practice, and what they want to get out of practicing their faiths before bringing their children into it.
 
Some couples face what has been called the December Dilemma, where multiple faiths have days of celebration around the same time. 
 
Some families try to celebrate each holiday separately on their respective days, but allow for decorations of both holidays to be present the entire holiday season (this avoids the December Dilemma of deciding, for example, if they should put up a Christmas tree or a Menorah). 
 
One inter-faith couple told me that they celebrate both sets of holidays and will let their children decide what faith to follow in the future.
Some families just celebrate all the holidays at once in their own interpretation of mixing traditions together.
 
Finally, other families make a firm decision that the children will be brought up with one faith and one set of traditions, and the parent from the other faith either gives up a faith, or celebrates the holidays more privately, or with less emphasis even if the children are involved.
 
Basically, it is important for the couple to decide ahead of time, as much as they can, what they believe would be best, not only for them, but for their kids as well. It is important to keep in mind that managing different holiday celebrations and how to incorporate them into your family’s life is a yearlong process.
 
One thing that many inter-faith relationships face is a lack of acceptance from family and friends.
 
An old colleague of mine used to be very out spoken about his stance against inter-faith marriage to the point where he would refuse to attend the weddings of his friends and families if they married outside his religion. This eventually led to a lot of abandonment. 
 
Everyone has an opinion about inter-faith relations, and it may not always be in favor of the loving couple.
 
If you are entering into an inter-faith relationship, and believe it is heading in the direction of an inter-faith family, be sure you are ready to face opposition that you may not have known you had.
 
Personally, I find it sad when family and friends are accepting of inter-faith friendships, but not accepting of inter-faith romances. 
 
In fact, in my own practice, the biggest challenge to inter-faith couples is not the couple’s inability to work out the role of religion in their lives and the lives of their children; their biggest challenge is getting close family members on board to support them as they would any same faith relationships.
 
If there could be just one message I could relate to those parents and other family who abandon a loving inter-faith couple it is this:
 
The taint of your abandonment will never be removed even if you reconcile later.
 
More often than not, abandoning family re-enter that couple’s life again in the future, and it usually is because you want to see the children of the new inter-faith family. 
 
Think long and hard before you do something that will never be forgotten. I have yet to meet any abandoner that later claimed it was the right thing to do.
 
Happy Holidays whatever you celebrate!

When Love Ends At The Best of Times
Heartbreak for the Holidays
By Frank Kermit


As the holiday season approaches there are a number of things most people can count on. Time off, shopping, spending time with family and friends (including the ones you may not be particularly fond of), bad weather, exams if you are a student, end of the year projects at work that need to get done, the pressures of holiday get-togethers, worse weather, bad drivers, holiday parties, trips to the clinic, feeling overwhelmed, traveling, even worse weather, travel delays, resolutions, less day light, longer commutes…did I mention the weather? But if you are lucky enough, you might just have that kind of holiday season where you get a glimpse, a tiny reminder of what makes it all worth it. The holiday season brings about a sense of reflection for many people. It is a time, when we look back on all the things we have done or accomplished in the past year (or didn’t). And that is why holidays bring about the end of many relationships.

The holiday times can be super challenging if you have a lot going on. It is easy to feel pressure and exhaustion, as if you are being pulled in too many different directions. When this pressure hits, and you start questioning if the relationship you are in is worth it…that means only one thing: you-are-normal.
 
Holidays have a reputation of bringing out the best in humanity…it can also bring out the worst too. Not everyone can handle the holiday times, and if you are having any issues with the person you are dating, the holidays are ripe to exploit even your most minuscule doubts and have them cause cracks in the foundation of your relationship future.

It may not be until the holiday’s approach that some people take the time to ask if this is the relationship they really want to be in. It may not be until the holiday’s approach that some people must now decide if they are going to introduce the new partner to their family. Holidays can force issues like commitment-talk, future-talk, family-planning-talk, and even the dreaded, so-what-are-we-exactly-and-where-is-this-going-?-talk. (Yeesh! And you thought that people just drank too much over the holidays to make merry…)

And those are only the challenges if you are monogamous. When dating multiple people during the holidays, it can be a bit tricky because there are only a couple of nights that you have to spend with your someone special that have important meanings to it, and if you have more than one someone special in your life, choosing only one person to spend that special night with, usually means that the others will dump you. If you can’t bring all of your partners together to celebrate with you (and hey, that could happen), you might not get to spend it with anyone.
 
The reverse can happen as well if your preferred partner is seeing more than one person, and happens to choose someone else to share that midnight New Years kiss with, instead of choosing you. It can be easier than you think to end up alone on a major holiday. Being polyamorous doesn’t protect you from the same risks as being monogamous.
 
Think of the holiday season as a test. Can your relationship survive the holiday hazards? Is the person you are dating understanding about the time you need to prepare for your exams (exams that can change the course of your life)? Is the person you are with just adding to your holiday aches? Are you the one that is making things worse for your partner because the holidays are fueling the fires of your own unresolved issues? It is a pretty safe bet that if your love life cannot withstand the handful of weeks leading up to, and including the holidays, it is likely that the person you were dating would not have been a reliable life partner for you anyways. So the good news about a holiday break up is that you found out before you got more committed or attached.

That still does not change the fact that the end of a relationship heading into, or during the holidays, just royally sucks. It is going to hurt. There is never a “good time” for a relationship to break up. There will always be reasons to stay, even when the most important reason (the fact that you do not want to be in a relationship with that person) says that you need to go. Holidays notwithstanding, if the relationship ended, you are still going to have to deal with the heartache.

If you do end up in heartbreak for the holidays, take every opportunity to make merry and spread cheer with the people you care about (except the one that dumped you), and enjoy the company of people that care about you. Take the time you need to mourn the end of your relationship, but not at the expense of the focus you need for those things (like study time to pass your exams) that WILL stay with you for the rest of your life. The pain is temporary.
 
There will be plenty of time to focus on the things you want, after you focus on the things you need to do first. And when you do mourn, remember what you LEARNED from your last relationship. If you can find the correct lesson to learn, so that you do not end up in exactly the same situation again, that is the path of finding your relationship redemption.
 
That is the way to forgiving the most important person you need to forgive in a break up…yourself. Have a safe holiday season everyone.

Frank Kermit

 How Much Should You Care About What Other People Think?
By Frank Kermit
 
There will be times when we want to do something in our lives that is meaningful to us. It could be a decision related to abandoning education, what career path to choose, what kind of person to date, changing something major in how we live, or even a new life experience to experiment with to see if it is for you.
 
Each option that you consider can unto itself be overwhelming. However, if it is something that may have the consequence that others may not like you for doing it, it can make an overwhelming option a near impossible decision.
 
With each new choice we make, there will be benefits and consequences. The benefits are usually easier to identify than the consequences. The one alarming factor in your internal debate is the fact that you do not actually control the consequences of your actions.
 
However, when we believe that one of the consequences of our actions may be lack of approval from people, it can make going for what you want a harder decision. If what other people think of you is very important to you, it is likely going to be a huge factor in your decision making process. Sometimes, that can be a good thing, but it is not always as important as people think. Over the course of your life, it is YOU, and not anyone else that will bare the major burden of any decision you make. If you are going to take into account the opinions of others, it is important to keep in mind exactly how effective those "others" are in the ongoing process of your life.
 
There are times when caring about what others think has incredibly good side effects. A teenager, who chooses not to experiment with drugs and avoids the whole drug culture because she worries about how her parents may disapprove, helps keep her safe.
 
That is a good side effect. Caring about what your boss thinks about your conduct both in and out of the office is often necessary as it can have an impact on your ability to be promoted, and increase your earning potential. Not all approval seeking behaviors and decision-making is bad. When the negatives in your life outweigh the positives because you are caring about what others think, and put their approval ahead of your own happiness, that is when you are caring way too much.
 
One of the lessons I teach people who are struggling with pursuing relationship goals is how to balance when to worry about what other people think, and when to just follow through on your interests. People tend to have more regrets about the things they did not do, or at least try, than to regret the things they did do and try, even if they failed at it.
 
When you are trying to judge if you should care about what someone thinks; when you are trying to decide if you should go for it or not, you must ascertain whether or not their opinion actually has any legitimate and actually harmful consequences for you. Does the person in question have the power to ruin the quality of your life in a significant way? If the answer is no, then really, who cares what they think? If the answer is yes, then you have a choice to make to judge if the consequences would outweigh the benefits.
 
For example: you want to drop out of college and start your own business. You have talked about this plan and a number of people think you are crazy, while others support the decision even if they do not agree, and still a few love the idea. All of this is in fact meaningless.
 
The focus has to be on what are the consequences of this decision. If your parents are paying for your education and have told you that if you drop out they will no longer support you and that you would be financially on your own and have to move out of their basement, THAT is one of the consequences that needs to factor into your decision more than others.
 
Are you ready to completely live on your own and support yourself while you pursue this new path? Not sure? In this case caring about what "they" think is important. Also note that if the handful of people who thought it was a great idea for you to pursue, but aren't actually going to help you, or support you in pursuing that dream, then their opinion is worthless. It does not matter if they think it is a good idea. As they are not offering any support for your cause either way, what they think is not something you ever need to care about.
 
That is a key understanding many people miss out on. The idea that liking your idea without actually taking action to support you is as useless to care about as someone hating your idea but not doing anything to stop you from trying it.
 
What about dating and relationships? What about sex? If you want to date someone that some of your friends and family thinks is a bad idea, what should you do? If you want to have sex in a way that you would be stigmatized for, what do you do? You balance the benefits and consequences, including how you will be able to live with yourself long term if you do not even try. It is this one element that can be the most devastating. In the short term it is easy to give up some pleasure in your life in order to keep the peace with the people you care about. However, in the long term, living for others and being self-sacrificing does not necessarily grant peace nor happiness. It is more likely to lead to a life of unfulfilled dreams and an abundance of resentment.
 
There will be a consequence no matter what you do. There is ALWAYS a trade off. That is the way of life.
 
There is no one direction that does not have some kind of bad string attached. It is about choosing the paths that have the bad strings you are able to live with. If you have sex when you want to, with who you want to, you will experience one of the great pleasures life has to offer, but you may also acquire the scorn of people who disapprove calling her a slut or him a sleaze. If you choose not to have sex to please those people, you are limiting some of the life experience and life lessons that comes from experience, which may be something you regret not doing down the road.
 
Will it be comforting for you that you cared what others thought when you hit your mid-life crisis regretting all the things you missed out on? Only you can answer that truthfully. If you choose to go after your dreams there will be people who will HATE you for doing it if you succeed, and will HATE you if you fail; and there will always be consequences to just having dreams no matter what they are. Should you still have and go after your dreams?
 
If you have relationships with individuals that some of your family and friends can not stand, you will have to deal with possibly being cut off from them and others you love that may be caught in the middle (like a younger relative that must obey their parents that no longer approve of you).
 
However, you may very well have the main relationship partner of your life that addresses your most important emotional needs better than your friends and family ever could. Is it worth it? Only you can answer that truthfully. Then again, you could forget that potential partner and only date someone your friends and family do approve of that may or may not completely fulfill you. If you do, and given you keep your friends and family connections intact, it could seem like an acceptable trade off. Is it worth it?
 
Only you can answer that truthfully. Or since you can't be with whom you really want, and you don't want to be with anyone else, you could just end up alone for the rest of your life. That way no one is happy, but no one is hurting...except for you. By putting everyone else's needs ahead of your own, you ARE hurting. It is just that it is not always easy to detect when you are being hurt since you are not in the habit of looking after your own needs. (Ouch, those a-ha moments sting don't they?)
 
Whether "they" are strangers on the Internet who have nothing better to do than to troll your efforts and post negative comments, or if "they" are people that actually have the power to affect your ability to provide for yourself, the process is the same. Judge if the consequences are actually worth what you are getting for it.
 
Over the course of time, your consequences change for certain decisions you make for yourself. The consequences of being an uneducated 19 year old, in a closed social circle, who is dependent on parents to survive is very different from the consequences you would have to deal with as an independent 35 year old adult, who owns a business, and does not care about breaking ties with close friends and family.
 
So do keep in mind that how much you have to care about what others think will change over your lifespan, as your dependency on others change.
 
One thing is for sure though. No matter what decision you take, YOU are still the one person that has to live with the full consequences of every decision you do make, and that you don't make, regardless if you cared about what other people think or not.
 
Frank Kermit

 

G. L. Henderson is an award-winning author and in his acclaimed work, "The Fantasy Master" he asks the question, "At what price are you willing to pay to have a Fantasy? Are you willing to give up the love in your life for a temporary moment of pleasure?"
G.L. covers a wide range of situations dealing with the human experience. From the mentality of an emotionally battered woman to the sensuous depths she experiences in her imagination and physical being.
G.L. was nominated for top new non-fiction author by the Charlotte's Literary and Arts Awards. G.L. is coming off a self-titled national book tour, sponsored by the Oakley Corp. As a finalist for the Ebony Magazine's Top-Rated Eligible Bachelor of 2006. G.L. has a lot to say on the topic of romance and relationships. Covering both the bachelor standpoint, and the feminine perspective, he gives us the privilege of others' experiences... who dare to share. The emotional depth in his work personifies the accuracy and mystery required of such themes. The experiences of the human spirit are explained so eloquently and tastefully through his mind.

Frank Kermit makes his 3rd appearance on The G L Henderson Hour on the Artist First website network. On this show Frank and G L discuss Infidelity: the root of marital evil. A wife catches her husband having an affair, and then catches him with the same woman again. Should she leave him? They have two children together. Also discussed are ways to affair proof your marriage, accidental affairs, making monogamy work, getting past a betrayal of trust, getting over the hurt of an affair and more...Frank also shares his own story of how he got over being cheated on, finding peace and forgiveness and how he coaches singles and couples who are surviving an affair.

Published on Apr 26, 2016
Can a threesome save a sexless marriage? G L Henderson of the Artist First network talks to Frank Kermit about it. This is Frank's 2nd appearance on the show

 Date: February 21, 2013 Title: G. L. Henderson Radio Hour
Frank Kermit makes his 1st appearance on the G L Henderson Radio Hour. On this show, Frank and G.L. talk about Sexual Health and Families Out Of Control.

  The Pregnancy Test Scam - But is it Real?
 
By Frank Kermit
 
There is a disturbing trend that seems to be happening that involves pregnant women supplementing their income by selling positive pregnancy tests online to women who want to use the pregnancy testing device with a positive marking to possibly con their boyfriends or male lovers into proposing marriage. At least that is what the ads claim could happen.
 
An ad on Craigslist claims that the expectant mother, "is selling used testing sticks for $25 each, saying she's been asked so many times, she had decided to start charging." In my own search I also found one on ebay with a listing description of: "Clear & simple brand positive pregnancy test. Done on day of postage. Good for a prank."
 
Is this what it has really come too? Unable to empower herself into a committed relationship, and despite having the full freedom of choice to move on and find a new partner when the one she is with refuses to step up and take their relationship to the next level, that there are women who would rather stay with a man that continually rejects her such that she has to attempt to scam him into getting serious?
 
I wonder at what point will the women, who are successful in getting a proposal with this ruse, turn around and realize they will have to keep the lie going? For example, to what lengths will she go to fake a miscarriage? Will she then try extra hard to get pregnant for real right after the proposal and fake being overdue the 40 week gestational period (assuming she gets pregnant at all)? Is this even something seriously considered by some women? If not, then what is the market that has such a high demand for these positive pregnancy tests (besides an entire audience that wants to prank their loved ones)?
 
Mind you, when I see the number of women in my practice who waste years of their lives, as time runs out on their biological clocks, waiting for their male lovers and boyfriends to "change his mind", I have to believe it is more likely than not. At least these women are not "accidentally" forgetting to take their birth control pills as a means to get what they want (a pregnancy their male partners did not consent too).
 
To the ladies that are actually buying the positive pregnancy tests as a means to trick your male sex partners into a proposal; if nothing else, consider this: When your boyfriend or male lover is not as interested in committing to you the way you would want him to commit, the best choice is to stop seeing him and find a man that wants to be with you. Trying to change the man you are with, or worse, having to scam him into that kind of commitment, will land you alone. If the truth of what you did coming out does not bring about your abandonment, then surely the repeating behavior pattern that this scam reflects will be your downfall.
 
Frank Kermit

Tattoos and Relationships:
Beware The L-I-N-K of Love and INK
 
By Frank Kermit
 
While at a coffee shop a few weeks ago, I met a tattoo artist. He had his son's name tattooed on his hand, and being the ever-inquisitive one, I asked him about his profession and the topic of getting the name of someone tattooed on your body. He told me that historically, sailors who traveled from port to port had a history of tattooing the name of the girl they spent most of their time with. At each new port, the name of the previous girl was crossed out, and underneath it was the name of the new girl he met that became the love of his life. The sailors would only spend a limited amount of time at each port, and then head back out to sea. This was also a period of time when vagabond sailors did not have any guarantee that they would be returning to another port, and die at sea; so in essence, they had to make the most of the romance they had today, for tomorrow they may all die. With that in mind, those sailors had very little to lose to the L-I-N-K (love and ink).
 
People in modern times are a different story. The artist told me that he believes that tattooing the name of children on a parent is likely the more acceptable (if not the most acceptable) form of name tattooing because you will always be a parent, and a parent is suppose to always love their children. However he cautioned against tattooing the name of a partner (whether it be someone you are simply dating, or a spouse). In his business, he simply has seen too many good intentioned lovers end up regretting getting their partner's name tattooed on their bodies, and have to end up deciding if they wanted the tattoo removed, or covered up with another tattoo (such as a simple black bar or a more elaborate design). Body modification (piercing, plastic surgery, tattoos and such) does not carry with them the stigmas they used too. Younger people are more accepting of their peers who apply them, celebrities who earn their spotlight though their ability to continue to garner attention indirectly endorse it by having it done, older people who have mostly lived quiet, law-abiding lives sometimes want to experience the rebellious rejuvenation by having something done in the golden years of their lives. But regardless of all of that, getting the name of your partner tattooed, is still something that some tattoo artists simply refuse to do because of the high risk of regret that may follow such actions.
 
What is very strongly recommended is that a symbol be used, instead of a direct name. The symbol could be something that represents how the couple got together, or perhaps a common interest that the couple happens to share. For example, a character from the couple's favorite movie, or perhaps an image of a favorite flower if the couple had flowers play a role in their first date, or perhaps they have the same zodiac sign and that is the symbol they can use. It stands to reason that even if the couple breaks up after the tattoo is completed, that those tattoo images can still have meanings that do not just reflect the past relationship, but a still relevant element of the person that has been marked.
 
I have never had the experience of having a lover want to get my name tattooed on her body. In my younger years, during a very passionately intense time in my life when I lived a much more adventurous lifestyle, the closest I ever got to having a lover have my name tattooed on her body was when I would scribble my initials on my lovers skin using a felt tipped marker. Now before, anyone gets upset, everyone involved was a consenting adult, the marker ink washed off, and it was always areas of skin that were covered in clothing. Some of the women I did this with actually got a thrill, as if I had been some cave man brut who was marking his territory. In fact, one lover made it a point to go shower at the gym to "show off" to the other girls that she had been "marked by her man". There were others who agreed to it for fun, thou I caught them rolling their eyes at how giddy I had become in doing it (well, so much for my masterful masculine image huh?).
 
But that is exactly the point...it was not permanent, so it could be fun. I may never have a Frank fan that would L-I-N-K to me. This is probably a good thing, as I may just be a passing fad or phase to them. But Oh, so help me, I can not help but feel a little ego boost at the thought that someone would be enthused with me that much to consider doing it...maybe that is why, despite the obvious risks of tattooing a partner's name on your body, this practice is continues to be done by a handful of lovers and artists. It is not just about how the marked person feels about the named person being inscribed. It can also be about how it makes the named person feel. If you are going to tattoo the name of your lover, or want your lovers to tattoo your name on them, be sure you all know the risks. If you have any doubts regarding facing those risks at a later time, then do not do it.
 
Frank Kermit

A Frank Comment on
Miley Cyrus VMA 2013 Performance
 
By Frank Kermit
 
I do not normally comment on the antics of popular culture, as so much of what we see of movies and TV are fiction based romances and relationships. I tried my best to stay focused on relationships in the real world and write about what realistically works and what does not.
 
Intrigued by the kafuffle of the Miley Cyrus performance at the 2013 Video Music Awards where Cyrus performed a sexually charged number with Robin Thicke I also had to comment. Cyrus who is now 20 years old was a child actress who performed the character of Hannah Montana from 2006 to 2011 on American TV, and part of a very strong brand of childrens entertainment under Disney.
 
Part of the controversy is that Disney strongly pushed the Hannah Montana franchise and branded the image of "Good Girl" Hannah so much that audiences associated those characteristics to actress Miley Cyrus. Even the good people at the Parent's Television Council were angered by Cyrus's more adult performance.
 
Folks, please, it is time for a Frank Reality Check. Miley Cyrus is an ACTRESS/PERFORMER who played the part of Hannah Montana. Her time in that role is over, and as an adult, she gets to decide what role her career can/must take to keep her making a living. Just like any of you will take on roles and jobs that other people may not like, when you get fired or laid off, but need to keep going. She is not a teenager anymore working for Disney. She is a grown woman that wants to take her career where she wants it to go.
 
It is time to respect that, whether you like it or not; she does not have to placate to the wishes of what everybody else wants her to be.
 
Cyrus is no different from her peers in terms of what she needs to do to get noticed in the music business. Keep in mind that Elvis Presley, who is TAME by today's standards was considered too dangerous to be on TV because of the way he shook his hips when he performed. "Elvis the Pelvis" did what he had to do to stand out to get attention in the music industry. Maybe it is not so original, but for some reason it works. It got everyone talking about it. That was the point. I find it almost funny how the people that complained the most were the ones that did not simply click off the remote when it happened.
 
Some people think that artists should not need excessive gimmicks and such to get attention and should expect that talent speak for itself. In both entertainment and dating, that simply does not work. There are plenty of talented people out there that never become stars, just like there are plenty of really good people that never find love. Being talented or being good simply is not enough. In all areas of life you need to market yourself. If Cyrus were looking to break away from her Hannah Montana image, I would say it was a very successful move. Now we get to see what she can really do on her own from this point on.
 
Lastly, yes there is a concern for all the young girls who grew up watching and idealizing her. I will tell you what I would tell the Parents Television Council, as well as any parent that I coach when families face challenges:
 
CELEBRITIES ARE NOT ROLE MODELS.
 
They are entertainers who have a job of being in the public eye. They are human, not divine. And when a gig or job finishes up for them, they move on to the next employment opportunity or start their own. Parents that worry about losing the Hannah Montana role model for their daughters, listen up. Hannah Montana was a character on TV, not a real person to admire.
 
If you really want your kids to have a role model, the BEST role model out there is YOU: THE PARENTS. Our kids will not always do what we say, but they will almost always do what we do. BE a role model for your kids, and stop depending on celebrities and fictional characters to be that role model in your place.
 
Frank Kermit

What They Do Not Tell You About Having Kids
 
By Frank Kermit
 
I always try to be very practical and realistic in my articles. This can come across very negative, given that my topic is Relationships (and all things relative) and most associations made with love, sex, dating and relationships are generally positive ones. So writers such as I often get scorned for presenting a realistic side of what relationships have to offer. I don't wish for people to walk away from my works with a negative view of love, life, relationships and each other.
 
What I do want to impart is that the reality of relationships, if you are aware and prepared for it, can work in your favor to have a great one. If you are not prepared for the reality of relationships, it is the lack of awareness and preparation that will taint your experience, and not the relationship in question.
 
I am a father. I love my son. The best way I can describe what it feels like to be a father is to tell people that I have acquired a happiness and fulfillment that I never knew I was missing. With that said, there were a number of realities related to having kids, that I was not neither aware of nor prepared for. What I am about to share with you is by no means a complete list. Think of it as an introduction to the things most people will not tell you about becoming a parent.
 
Having a kid means that you will never again take sleep for granted. There simply is too much to do, within too little a time frame, and you don't get any days off. You learn just how much people with children are actually running on very little sleep.
 
Having a kid means you learn to eat garbage and learn to love the taste. Here, I refer to metaphorical garbage, such as biting your tongue when you want to tell off your idiot boss, because even though you would be ready to handle the consequences of getting fired from your job, there is a little person who is depending on you to keep a stable income and whatever company benefits you rely on, to keep that little person healthy, taken care of and safe.
 
Having a kid means that you learn very quickly that all of your hopes. dreams and plans need to take a back seat to the absolute needs of your child. Those ideal vacation spots, alternative career pursuits, and even artistic endeavors will simply have to wait until you work your way into a more stable and affordable situation, which depending on other life circumstances (poor health, employment issues, and family crisis) could make it impossible to ever pursue. Your dreams of writing that book, being known for your art, or pursuing a lofty education really don't measure up against having to care for an infant and tending to you kids basic needs for survival.
 
Having a kid means that you learn very fast that no one gives a damn about you or your kid as much as you thought they did. You and your kids are no one else's first priorities, and people will take care of their own problems before they will ever worry about you and yours.
 
Having a kid means whatever issues you did not resolve from your own childhood could come swarming up when you become the parent. Some people end up reliving their own horrible childhoods as they watch their own children grow up. Raising a kid is hard enough. Battling your own personal demons just makes it that much more difficult.
 
Having a kid means that if you choose the wrong relationship partner, you find out in the worst possible ways. As a relationship coach, I often find my clients very surprised when they go on and on about having thought about finding their soul mate, and I ask them if they talked to their soul mate about common values they would utilize in parenting.
 
Would you be surprised to hear that the majority of people never (and I mean NEVER) considered qualities of being a good parent as a means of identifying a soul mate? If it turns out that your soul mate would be a lousy parent, you may just want to re-consider just what the heck your criteria for spotting a soul mate is.
 
Having a kid means that your relationship will experience extra pressures. Even the best partnerships will feel the strain of parenthood, and will have to separate actually being upset with your partner, versus just lashing out at your partner because you are both at your wits end.
 
Having a kid means that you simply will not meet those deadlines for work because your kid needed you to rush out to a hospital for an ear infection, or dehydration from prolonged gastro, or an injury that took place at daycare. The less support system of have of extended family and friends, the more you will have to run around on empty just to keep a minimal status quo.
 
Having a kid means you have come to realize the most important job a human being could ever have is to be a good parent. It is a hard and nearly thankless job for the most part. It is at that point when you come to terms with that all you can do is the best you can, with what you have, and you just hope that will be enough. If it is not enough, then you and your kid are both in trouble.
 
At the same time, this might be a key factor in you having compassion for your own parent's shortcomings. Even your parents did the best they could with what they had, and when their best was not good enough, it was all you could get.
 
Having a kid means, that if your life did not have any meaning before, it does now.
 
Having a kid means, that you have a new appreciation and understanding for issues that affect the masses, because they affect the world in which your kid is growing up.
 
Issues like censorship, laws regarding keeping people safe, bullying, tuition fees, even changes in government policy that could potentially affect your kids 10 or 15 years in the future matter to you more than they ever could have before. Having walls built around home swinging pools seems like an example of over regulation, until it is your kid that could be in danger of drowning.
 
Having a kid means you realize just how much people who do not have kids, really do not understand what it means to raise a child of your own; and as a parent you cannot take for granted that anyone would care enough or have compassion for your kid the way you do.
 
All those, "If I ever had a kid, I would never..." yappers find themselves touting a different tune when they are the exhausted parent just trying to survive another day during a kid's defiant stage.
 
Having a kid means you learn just how incredibly helpless a parent can feel when your baby is suffering, and there is nothing you can do about it, wishing you could simply take their place and suffer for them.
 
Having a kid means you swap an-exciting-romantic-power-sex evening for an evening of microwave-popcorn-cartoon-movies-and-a-smiling-calmer-kid as a definition of a-good-time-had-by-all.
 
Having a kid means you will be pushed to the very limits of your energy, your patience, your ability, and then...you continue going. You have someone depending on you and thus you simply have too. Parents do not need to watch The Walking Dead. During cold season, parents sometimes ARE the walking dead.
 
Having a kid means that you become acutely aware of your mortality and thus start getting focused on having a legal will in place, or inheritance in place, in case you die, so that a contingency plan is set to care for your kid after you are gone. You may swap your dreams of fame and fortune in exchange to just wanting to own your own house and some land to grow your own food, just in case you don't last long enough to meet your own grand-kids.
 
If you and your partner are thinking about having a kid, and if it is your first, make sure you are ready for the sacrifices and life changes it will bring about.
 
Adhere to the reality of having a kid. Otherwise that lack of awareness and preparation will be the exact reason your relationship may not survive.
 
Frank Kermit 

Pressures of Parenthood
Can Break Partners Apart
 
By Frank Kermit
 
Our society likes to paint pictures of parenthood as a wonderful world of laughter, solemn moments shared between parents, and between parents and their children. The jokes about all those things that make parenting a frantic experience sometimes seem to be brushed away as just exaggeration designed to elicit laughter. Behind that comedy however, is a terrible truth. It is hard work to be a parent. Couples, who are not capable of handling the pressures that come with new parenthood, can sometimes make the mistake of taking their frustrations out on each other, and seriously jeopardize the future of their family relationships.
 
Experts claim that the best thing to do is simply get your kids into a routine as early as possible. This is very helpful indeed...however, what happens when your baby is not routine friendly? Some newborns fall in with a steady routine, but there are those that do not. Not every child maintains normal sleep cycles.
 
New parents may be secretly struggling to function at their jobs, supporting family and friends and being a parent on almost little or no sleep. If both parents are working, that also means that two people are suffering during infancy years, and if daycare calls saying your kid is sick and has to stay home...somebody may to have to deal with an annoyed employer.
 
If either of the couple has any unresolved issues with their own past childhood, those issue can surely surface in the face of absolute exhaustion and in the process of dealing with a new stage in life, in adopting the mantel of mommy or daddy. Having a child can easily trigger long buried traumas to reemerge, as a person starts to relive their own upbringing, as they attempt to relate to the newness of how a newborn first discovers the world.
 
If there is one thing I hate to see in my practice, it is young families break up within the first years of a child's life. Ironically, those children where brought into the world from love; a love that may still exist underneath the resentment between partners that has festered in part due to a couples inability to deal with the new pressures of parenthood, and blaming their pain on each other.
 
There is no point in talking about being prepared before a baby comes into the family. No matter how prepared you are (and it is a good idea to buy as many baby related supplies ahead of time as possible) you will likely not be ready for the sheer exhaustion that awaits new parents. So instead of trying to be ready to be good parents, it might be a good idea to also try remaining a good partner in your relationship. One of the ways to do that is to remember that you are both struggling right now, and the lack of love you might be experiencing is part of a process that could just be temporary, and that in fact, could very well lead to an even deeper kind of love and commitment because your partner and you have your most important interest in common: the best interest of your children.
 
Frank Kermit 

Breakups and the Children of your Ex
By Frank Kermit
 
Breakups can be messy, especially when there are children involved. If the break up involves the court system, they get worse.
 
The rules can be pretty clear when the children belong to both parents in the couple breaking up. 
 
However, when the children involved only belong to one of the individuals of the relationship that is ending, it can be really heart-wrenching for some adults to find out they may not have any say in continuing a relationship with the children of a former partner.
 
In cases where a single parent has started seriously dating another adult, the lines about what role that new adult can play in a child’s life can be very blurry, especially in cases where the relationship, although serious and long term, may never have involved marriage, and/or the adoption of the child by the new adult partner, or even the couple living together.
 
However influential and a positive impact an adult in a relationship with a single parent may have had with the single parent’s child, it may not merit an ongoing association with that child when the romantic relationship ends.
 
In the case where children are minors, the child’s parent (who is a newly-single parent again) may be well within their rights to forbid any sort of interaction between his or her child and the former partner.
 
This can be a horrible situation for the former partner who may have bonded with the child, and for the child that could have an attachment to the former partner.
 
It is important that the best interest of the children involved are kept in the forefront of any decision about how the couple will handle the end of their relationship and to factor in those best interests, even if you no longer like your former partner.
 
With that said, it is also important to assess how worthwhile it will be for the children to continue to associate with a former partner that is no longer involved with the children’s parent, and the context of the break up.
 
For example, if continuing to associate with the children would interfere with the single parent’s new relationship opportunity for a more serious partner that wants to step up to being a legal step parent, it may be wise to terminate the association.
 
As most relationships between adults tend to not last a significant duration (relative to how a child experiences the time) it is often a good idea not to introduce new partners to your children until a definite commitment and plan has been made to take your serious long term relationship to the next level to the point where the new partner would take on a family role as a legal step parent.
 
If you are a couple in the process of breaking up and there are children involved in your relationship that have bonded to the former partner, make sure that you and your former partner plan a proper exit strategy that takes into consideration how the former partner will or will not be involved in the lives of the children of the single parent because that extra dose of maturity is what is in the best interest of your children, your step children, and the children of your partner.
 
Frank Kermit
 

What if it were your kids going to that school too ?

Frank Comment on Karla Homolka

By Frank Kermit MA

 April 27, 2016, updated on April 18, 2018


When the news story broke in 2016 that Karla Homolka was found to be living in Chateauguay, Quebec, with a legally changed name, married with 3 young children and thus was regularly on the grounds of an elementary school where she took two of her oldest, I started to think.


One of my first thoughts was did her new husband know of her past before he had children with her, or was that information hidden from him and he was duped?  After all, given the fact that she is a convicted serial killer who helped target her own younger sister, along with two other teenage girls, that simply cannot be something a person could easily overlook while falling in love.


As it turns out, her husband is the brother of her lawyer, and I would personally assume he knows even more details about what happened than the public does. Maybe I am wrong.


Another question I had was whether or not the news media did any disservice to her children by revealing the exact house they live in. Although the young kids are not responsible for the sins of their mother, would these very young children now be the targets of school bullies as well as any adults in and around the school who may take on the mantle of social justice, to justify abusive actions against these children that happen to be just as innocent as Homolka’s original victims? 


Even if other school children, the school staff, and the parents of the other children in the school make it a point not to target those little kids, could revealing the exact location of the home in that neighborhood, ignite an individual vigilante who seeks to make more innocent children suffer in an effort to appease social justice’s call of an-eye-for-an-eye?


But the final question I had was what if it was my child was going to school with the children of a convicted serial killer?


I thought about this question the most. What would I do? It seems that after serving her sentence there is no legal action that can be taken to force her to remove her children from that school, and I do not know if isolating her children is an answer I would be comfortable with. Again, I would not want to punish the children for the actions of a parent.


One of the thoughts that came to my mind is that my kids could already be going to school with the children of convicted criminals and I simply do not know it. Just because it does not appear on the news media does not mean it does not exist.


The fact is, we really do not intimately know our neighbors, and that includes the neighbors we actually do know. 


Every family has secrets they do not share with the neighbors.


So where does that leave us with what to do, when you are concerned for the safety and well being of your children? 


Many years ago, on our first date my wife and I talked about a hypothetical situation of what we would do if it turned out one of our children was being so severely bullied at school that it started to affect their mental health. We both agreed that we would take every measure possible to protect our children including modifying our day-to-day work lifestyles and make whatever sacrifices were necessary to pull our child out of a brick-and-mortar school where our child was being victimized, and simply do whatever it took to home-school our kids. 


As we may not legally be able to expel the other kids who torment our children, we always have a choice about whether or not we send our children to a school in order to meet the educational requirements of the government.  


That conversation with my wife was one of the reasons I knew I was going to marry her, as we both felt very strongly about protecting our children and we both had the same vision of how we wanted to parent.


So, I guess that is what I would do.


From what I gather in the media follow-up stories, neither the school, nor the government is forced to remove Homolka’s children from any elementary school regardless of her criminal past. 


It has nothing to do with rehabilitation, as it seems it has to do more with the deal she and her lawyers struck with the prosecution, and the fact that she completed her 12-year sentence.


Again, maybe I am wrong.


What I do feel confident in stating, is that if it were my children in the position of so many other kids going to school where I did not feel my kids were extra safe I might very well put the home-school plan into action.


According to http://thecanadianhomeschooler.com/canadian-homeschool-laws-quebec/, a student who receives home schooling and benefits from an education experience which according to an evaluation made by or for the school are equivalent to what is provided at school, are exempt from compulsory school attendance. 


For more information about home-schooling and how to transition your child from going to a brick-and-mortar school, to schooling your own kids at home, please contact the Home School Legal Defense Association http://www.hslda.ca/ 


I really do not mean to offend anyone with this article. 


I just see people being very concerned about what they should do, and before anyone takes any actions they are going to later regret or feel terrible about, I thought it would be wise to at least cover other options that are available.


I wish you all peace and healing.