gadgetlady

I just sent out edocs to everyone. If you didn't get them, please let me know!

:funnypost::eek: Welcome, IndioGirl55. Hope we can provide good information for you here. Not everyone will tear you apart

Don't know what's up with the emoticons, but that one was supposed to be a frown, not a -- whatever it is.

Susannah, I can completely understand if you came from an abusive household how spanking wouldn't make sense. It is very difficult to have grown up in an environment like that and associate calm, even, disciplinary spanking with anything but violence. I can assure you, spanking does not need to be violent and does not need to inflict the emotional harm that you and many others have endured through abusive, out-of-control parents. I'm sorry you suffered that :cry. As to the discussions of alternate forms of discipline, there certainly are many and there are many that work if applied consistently. In our family, there are only certain offenses that earn a spanking; the kids know what they are. Alternate methods of discipline, if appropriate, are also used. Our 9 year old has just about outgrown the spankings; she rarely gets them anymore. Our 6 year old doesn't get many anymore either. But they both know what actions will earn one.

MSNBC Video Mom and baby both had a team of doctors -- hmmm -- says to me there were TWO patients there. Look at that precious unborn baby's hand, teeny-tiny fingers. This is no blob of tissue, no mass of unidentifiable cells. Instead of performing surgery on this tiny patient, the doctors could have instead been legally snuffing his life out through "safe and legal" abortion. Of course, it's only "safe" for the mother.

LOL! I can imagine it would be bizarre to anyone who experienced it being angry and out of control. When we give our girls a spanking, we first explain to them calmly why they're getting it (sometimes we ask them what they deserve and they say they deserve a spanking). Then we have them turn around and put their hands up on a wall (so they don't instinctively try to block the spanking). We spank them, and then they turn around and we give them a hug and some loving to empathize with their pain. We have explained to them many times why punishment is necessary. They know which types of transgressions will earn a spanking. They get it. The understand that when natural consequences aren't effected (i.e. if they fall while running around after being told not to, that's a natural consequence), parental-imposed consequences will be. The only time spanking doesn't work, at least in our family, is when it's arbitrary, inconsistent, or done in haste or anger. Does that explain it a little better?

I agree with you. There is no excuse for violence and it should be reported. Spanking, however, isn't always violence (it can be when used in anger and when it is vengeful and degenerates into beating). Spanking can be calm and loving and a good disciplinary tool.

The intent of spanking, in our family, is to associate pain with the behavior. If your child touches a hot stove and gets burned, he/she associates pain with touching a hot stove and doesn't do it again. There is no natural pain stimulus with many unacceptable behaviors (ranging from lying to crossing the street alone) so we artificially create them in an effort to train or protect our children from doing things that will harm them in the future. We also use an implement to spank, whenever possible. A flexible leather "stick" of sorts, something that causes a sting but doesn't cause a bruise or a welt, works well. We have tested the implement that we use on ourselves to make sure we're using the right amount of force. We prefer to use something other than our hands, which we prefer to use to convey more loving behaviors. There is a difference between disciplining in love (without anger) and beating your children. If someone has to spank their child every day, there's a problem. If someone is spanking so much and so hard that the child is welting and bruising, there's a problem. If someone is wailing on their child when they're angry, there's a problem. Our children don't like to be spanked, but they accept it willingly when they know they deserve it.

Oh, you should at least take a peek at your taxes. Most people don't really look at the numbers and know what "big brother" takes out of their hard-earned money. The biggest coup the government ever executed was withholding taxes from paychecks. If citizens had to write a check to the government every paycheck, month, quarter, or year, we'd likely have another tea party.

Hey, Vikki, I sent you an email -- did you get it? I haven't received anything from you. I'm on vacation right now but I am checking my emails.

Welcome, Funny! Thanks for your insightful comments driven by personal experience. The question of whether the thing growing in the woman's uterus is a baby is a simple one. Is it human? Of course it is. Check the DNA. Is it alive? Of course it is -- brain waves, heartbeat, etc. Ergo, human life. Have fun with this thread, guys! I'm off for a while now, heading across the Atlantic.

Either you are deliberately exaggerating or you are skimming everything I say. I mentioned women having abortions as a rite of passage as a response to the post that no one ever wants to have an abortion. I don't think that they're bad because some extreme women might want to have them. I think they're bad because they take a human life. Baby killing IS a booming business. Why don't you check out Planned Parenthood's annual income? And I never said abortion clinics are bad because they're full of "ringers". I mentioned a situation where one woman encountered them; you drew that conclusion.

Well I guess from a business standpoint the abortion clinic has the right to put whoever they want in their prep room to keep their customers from leaving. I think a lot of women are pressured into aborting because they feel they have no choice, as was this woman. Seeing a "counselor" in an abortion clinic who tells you you'll never know if the baby's father loves you or not if you keep the baby isn't really counseling. Being 19 and pregnant can be very scary and with no one supporting you in choosing life, it would be very easy to get pushed into a decision you'll later regret. I've seen it happen more than once. As to needing to give those customers valium to get through the procedure, and as to several people on this thread who have intimated that everyone feels relief and no regrets after abortion, I think this bandsters situation speaks to that.

Someone PM'd this to me, not wanting to post it herself. I have her approval to re-post it here and am taking out anything that would identify her. I had an abortion when I was 19 and it killed me. It was the worst mistake I could have ever made. And I lived with the pain and torture of it for a long time. All the while trying to get pregnant with my husband's and my first child after marriage. ([husband's name] was the father to the aborted baby, but we were not married, and when I spoke to the nurse at my doctor's office she told me that "it would be a shame to force him to marry you for the baby, you'll never know if he really loves you") It was not until I let go, helped with some post-abortion counseling, and truly opened myself up to God and asked to be cleansed of that sin that I finally got pregnant with [daughter] and the pregnancy stuck. We got [son] 15 months later. He was a happy surprise. I do not believe in accidents any longer. He was certainly not planned, and it was hard having pregnancies back to back, but I love him more than life itself. One thing that I found interesting... When I went for my appt i got put into a room with a bunch of other girls. We were given valium pills and made to sit and wait for our turn. There were these three women in there that were very vocal. One was young, and was so happy that she was able to do this. That she was "not ready for a child and needed to complete school". One was a woman in her 30's and "she has an abortion once a year. She has an allergy to latex and cannot take the pill because she smokes. So her and her husband utilize abortions as birth control" Another kept complaining about the "pro-lifers" near the street and how awufl they were. That they were just harming others by preaching to traffic. I observed them, and while waiting I got very upset. I starting crying so much that I hyperventilated. The doctor told me to leave and come back the next day. The next day I went through the whole routine again, took my valium and lo-and-behold the same three women were in the room. I was so angered, but the valium really takes the edge off of you, and i was so upset about being in there. It was total confusion. I just thought I would share how the clinic I went to was certainly deceptive and mind controlling up until the very end. Its very sad that baby killing is such a booming business. I fell to my knees and thanked God when I heard the decision on partial birth abortions. Its one step in the right direction. In case any of you skimmed that story, what happened was there were "ringers" in the abortion clinic placed there to be very verbal about their stories so that women would be convinced not to leave the clinic. I've never heard a story like that, but I don't doubt it's true.

If that could indeed happen, I'm sure women would not like it. You see, that's because they don't just want to be "not pregnant." They want to not have a baby, and not even know that someone else might have their baby. They want a dead baby. I have to run too. I'll be gone for a few days

If that could indeed happen, I'm sure women would not like it. You see, that's because they don't just want to be "not pregnant." They want to not have a baby, and not even know that someone else might have their baby. They want a dead baby.

Actually, I completely support, as most pro-lifers do, an exception in the case of the physical health of the mother (i.e. if the mother will suffer grave physical harm or death if she carries the baby to term). In that case, you are sacrificing one life to save the life of another. I don't know of any pro-lfie laws that have ever been proposed that don't include such an exception. BJean, as much as you want to demonize me as this heartless, uncompassionate, violence-loving, hateful person, it just simply is not true. I don't think a fetus has more value than an adult woman. It think all people have equal value, regardless of age, gender, race, or place where they live (even if that place is the uterus). I don't believe in bombing abortion clinics, shooting abortionists, or yelling at abortion-minded women they're going to hell. I believe in helping people as much as possible with the multiple resources available to them to keep them from acting with violent intention to their own offspring.

So you believe drugs should be legalized? The government gets involved in a lot of things that have to do with personal choices. The reason I believe the government has a right to get involved with this particular thing is because there's a separate human being involved. Not because of my religion or because of the issue of sin or because I love children or because I don't like sex. It is simply because the government's job is to protect innocent people who can't protect themselves.

Sorry for the typos but my "edit" function hasn't worked since the new format was introduced.

Let me turn it around. You believe it is acceptable for someone to tear a n innocent baby apart limb from limb or burn a baby to death from the inside out as he or she drinks harsh chemicals, but it's NOT acceptable to have a weapon to protect one's family from an intruder who may want to rape, torture, or kill the family members? I do have compassion for people with troubled minds and souls. While I would much prefer to offer an intruder in my house some counseling, I doubt he would be receptive to it. And I'm not willing to risk my family's life to test a theory that you can just talk a hardened criminal out of his chosen lifestyle while he is in the act. And an pregnant woman may FEEL like she has a gun pointed to her head, but in reality she does not (remember, again, that the first trimester of pregnancy is the most emotion time of a woman's life). Unless there is a medical issue that would endanger her life physically if she continued the pregnancy, what she is doing is simply killing her baby for her own convenience.

You just don't get it, do you? I don't like killing. I abhor violence of all kinds, most especially against children. But I would do anything to protect my family if they were physically threatened by an intruder in our house. I hope I never have to use a gun to protect them. But I would do it without hesitation if the lives of my family depended on it. Believing one has the right to protect oneself is very different from believing murder or killing is OK.

Hello everyone! We are on a cruise right now and just stopped in port so I thought I'd check in. No services for us today :-( but I'll download our church's message tomorrow and listen to it on my computer. I thought you all might enjoy my daughter's singing at our family Easter celebration. She has a voice which is definitely a gift from God. She is 9 years old and this was her first time singing in front of a group so you can see she's very nervous. Enjoy: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMiA29AhfTA]YouTube - Amazing Love by Cassandra[/ame]

I was addressing specifically this comment: I personally feel safer being in a house with a gun. I would never live in a house without one. And every member of our family has been trained very well in age-appropriate measures as to what to do with a gun (obviously for the young ones, don't ever touch one). I am confident that if someone ever broke into our house we would be adequately able to protect ourselves. I am equally confident that it is extremely unlikely that we will have a gun accident or that an intruder would be able to wrest our guns away from us (we wouldn't let them get close enough to do so due to locks, motion detectors, and alarms). During the L.A. riots in the early '90's, all of my friends, including some anti-gun ones, camped out at my house because they knew they would have at least a fighting chance if someone broke in. I don't trust that the police can get to us quickly enough if someone is in our house and we call 911. And that was certainly not the case during the riots as the police were overwhelmed.

I don't particularly care what the stats are. If you are a poorly trained gun owner, your probability of not using your gun properly is high. If you are well trained, your probability is low. I think education and training are more important than statistics.

I am actually scared for my children. That's one of the many reasons I choose to homeschool. My 9yo wants to IM with my mom all the time; I told my mom to never use abbreviations with her like "u" and "2 b", to be sure to capitalize properly, etc. Needless to say, education is a BIG deal to me.