Government Issue or Parenting Problem?

The other day I asked for suggestions on what I should blog about and someone suggested "Teenage Pregnancy In England".

Anyone that lives in England or has been there in the last 3 years knows that having a child at 16 is like a fashion there. Its like getting the latest hair cut or boots. In fact, 16 years is a bit old, lets say 14. If you walk into town in any British city, from London, to Swindon, to Nottingham, you'll see about 100 teenage girls, carrying babies (most of them mixed-race) and spending their easy-earned government benefits. I never understood how people that are given free condoms and told about protected sex from a very young age, can still voluntarily have babies and drop out of school, that is, until I understood the real deal.

If a teenager gets pregnant in England, they get more money from the government, free food for the baby, clothing, diapers, medicine and education, and when they turn 16 (i think) they get a free house; again, courtesy of the government. This may sound shallow but if I was offered a deal that sweet I'd be a mother of 6 by now, to hell with education. Why get educated when I can easily live in my house for free, and get more money from the government than I would be getting if I had a job.

Now, I know I'm making it sound like the government is to blame for giving them all these things for free, but what about the parents. I reckon if kids in England got beaten up more often, there'd be alot less teenage pregnancies. Think about it, one of the reasons my friends and I were always scared of the whole pregnancy thing is because we knew what our african, tough-love- practicing, disciplinarian parents would do to us. I know for a fact that if I had come home pregnant at 14, my father would have administered severe injuries to my body, and sent me to live in the village, where my grandmother would administer more sever injuries to my body..lol

One of my cousins was telling me about this woman she works with that has a 16 year old daughter, who recently got pregnant and you know what she said? " Its that boyfriend of hers, i told him he can spend the night but he must not impregnate her"
HELLLOOOOO! you can't tell a 16 year old boy to spend the night in your house, with your daughter as long as he doesn't get her pregnant, he's 16! all he cares about is getting laid..lol

In my opinion, the government and the parents need to work together to prevent teenage pregnancy. I don't even know why beating up your child is illegal in England, they need it more than Africans do. Bottom line, even if I was raising my child in england, I would still whoop their black african asses and dare them to dial 911!..

Know Who You Are

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything"
"If you don't know where you're going, you'll go where the wind blows"

Both of these quotes pretty much say the same thing: You have to know who you are and what you want out of life. Nothing I say will do enough justice to the importance of knowing what your values and principles are. You have to know what you will and will not do, what you're willing to compromise on and what you're will stand by fiercely.

Too often, I see kids that fall into the whole peer pressure thing, doing whatever is the "in-thing", not because they want to, but because "everyone's doing it". The funny thing is, while most people only go through this in high school or adolescence, some people just never get to figure out what their principles are. Even in their twenties, they'll still be doing whatever their friends think they should do. If you know yourself, know what you want out of life, know what your values are, there is no way in hell that anybody can make you do something you're not into.

What's your stand on drugs? If you don't have one, you're most likely to end up doing them
What's your stand on unprotected sex? If you don't have a solid answer for that, you're looking for trouble

I know I'm starting preach now..lol..but I need ya'll to understand, that most of the decisions we make in life are made based on our values and principles. So you have to have solid ones. If they're not solid, they will change as fast as fashion and technology. Know who you are, what you stand for, what you want out of life. If you know what you want out of life, you're more likely to make decisions that lead you to that goal.

Facebookers that Irk me

The Party Promoter:
Oh my goodness! why do these people insist on inviting you to parties, sometimes in countries across the world, as if they gonna pay for you to get there and back? And the party always has a stupid name like "Adultery" or "Threesome"...I'm thinking, how about, the day I want to go out, I holla at you and ask you if there's anything good that night?

The Facebook Whore:
This chick will get dressed all skimpy AT HOME and take pics on her phone. Note: she ain't actually going anywhere, she just felt like taking a picture in her bath towel sitting on her bed. There is someone on facebook that has a picture where she's standing in her room, in her bikini and heels, not at the beach; In her room. There's also the guys that take pictures of their six packs in the bathroom mirror and that will be the only picture they have on their profiles. Gosh, whoring yourself much?..lol

The Attention Seeker:
This person seeks love and approval on facebook. Maybe their mother doesn't tell them they're good looking or they don't have friends, so they put status updates like "If you miss me comment on this status"...ahem..I want to comment, not because I miss you, but because I want to tell you that if people miss you, you won't have to ask them if they do?..lol. By the way, such people might get suicidal if nobody comments on their status updates, they watch their updates like a hawk waiting for someone to comment and validate their existance.

The One Who Feels Familiar:
You know those people you've never met before, but they add you because you've got a few mutual friends, then they start commenting on all your pics and conversations as if ya'll have been best buds or as if ya'll are in the same social circle and they have the right to mock your pics and so on. I once had someone add me and start commenting on my wall posts simply because me and his uncle when to the same church in Kenya. He even went so far as to ask for my digits, expecting to get them because..I know his uncle..lol..erm...yea, we may know the same people, but if you and I havn't met or don't know each other..please know your place and don't get too familiar.

The One With Random Comments:
Let me give you an example: You put on your status : "Man U better win this game" and this person comments " Hey, how are you, long time, hows your mum".
Now...wats that greeting got to do with Man U winning? The reason why there's a wall and an inbox is so you can greet me. If you're gonna comment on a status update, make a comment that has got something to do with the status update, coz otherwise you're just being annoying.

The Emotional Cry-Baby:
I'm sure you've all seen these status updates " i'm gonna kill myself, can't believe this is happening" ..or... "you hurt me so bad, I can't stop crying"...nkt!
lol..these emotional cries for help tend to get on my nerves. Call me heartless but damn, don't you people have friends you can talk to about this stuff without telling us all about it?

People That Like their own status:
One word: LAME! of course you like it, why else would you put it there?

The Random add:
You cannot add me randomly on facebook and expect me to chat to you like I would to a close friend. I don't mind it when people add me randomly, as long as they dont start bugging me. By bugging me I mean, starting a conversation with me on chat, and then when I don't talk to you like you're my best bud, you start tying in CAPITAL LETTERS asking me WHY I'M NOT RESPONDING? and WHERE HAVE I GONE?

The Insecure Girlfriend
Do Not, I repeat Do Not add me as a friend just becasue I wrote on your boyfriend's wall and you want to keep track of our wall-to-wall. I'm not nice enough to be kind to you, I will accept the request and blast you as soon as you log in to chat and ask you why the hell you added me. If I know you, its cool, but if I don't..I know exactly why you added me and I don't like it. Remove Friend.

Why don't girls ask guys out?

I was chatting to a friend today and he asked me "Why don't girls ask guys out?"

I said to him that 1) If a girl asks a guy out, she might be..too forward and 2) girls can't handle rejection that well.
He said that there's nothing wrong with a girl asking a guy out coz he says life is about taking risks.

Now, in this day and age where women fight for equal rights. We want to get the same jobs as men, we want to be treated like we can do anything that a man can do. So why should we not ask men out? We are taught to be more independent, you know; we want a man, we don't need him! We are taught to be go-getters, hustlers, go for what you want, grab life by the balls..lol
Does asking a man out fall under this category of "grabbing life by the balls"? or is that taking it to a whole new level?
Women don't want to be seen as desperate. We flirt with men, you know, the subtle signals, like,laughing at all his jokes, even the lame ones that make you cringe inside..lol.. but other than that, we don't want to throw ourselves at you.
There's also the well known fact that men like the chase. Far as I know, men don't want anything that comes easy. So if you ask him out, are you not coming easy? They say a man will only appreciate you if he has to work hard to get you. So, we want to be appreciated, we won't ask you out, even if he pine for you every time we see you..lol

I believe that a woman cannot make a man be with her. If a man is not ready or does not want to be with her, he will not regardless of how many times she asks him out. And then the heart broken woman ends up hard hearted and maybe a little bitter at the fact that when she reached out,opened up, wore her heart on her sleeve, she fell flat on her face.
Men, on the other hand have the game, the swagger, they have the ability to make a woman fall for them.If they play their cards right, even the nastiest looking man can get with a halle berry look-a-like..lol..my point is, men have what it takes and in the end, its men that have the commitment issues, so they are the ones that have to decide when they're ready to settle down and then ask a girl out. Coz if she asks when he's not ready, it just does not end well..

I don't know why men would want girls to ask them out anyways, its just going to spoil the fun for you. You know you love the challenge...lol

Commenting

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Life IS Serious

There is nothing more serious than Life. I can say that boldly because I believe in that statement.
Someone once said "Life is God's gift to us, what we do with it, is our gift to God".

I am so tired of meeting people that are just playing through life. You know, they're not bothered enough to have goals. Not bothered enough to think about the consequences of their actions. How their actions today will shape their tomorrow. I understand it when adolescent boys and girls do it coz you know, they still at home and they don't really have to worry about long term stuff. But its the grown people that worry me. The 25 year old guy getting drunk every day when he should be looking for a job. The 24 year old woman still playing with toy boys that wont get her anywhere. The 29 year old man that cant be bothered to move out of his parents house, coz he's too lazy to do his own thing. The 18 year old girl sleeping around because she thinks its her time to have fun. Sure, it is her time, but there's consequences to these things that people do.
Please people, I urge you...take life a bit more seriously. Not so seriously that you give yourself an ulcer. I'm not saying don't have fun. Just think about what you do. Some things are just not worth the consequences they bring.

Does Choosing Your Friends Make You A Snob?

As a child, I was told numerous times to always choose my friends carefully and that the company you keep affects who you turn out to be.

At first, I used to think it was a bunch of crap, I just thought, I am who I am regardless of who I hang out with. The older I got the more I realized how important it is to choose the people you spend time with. I have seen perfectly smart boys become failures at school because they started hanging out with the wrong crowd. I've seen good girls become sluts because they started hanging out with sluts. The more you spend time with someone, the more they start to influence your way of thinking, and once your thoughts change, your actions change and that's it, you become more like them. You can always tell where someone is going just by looking at the people they spend most of their time with, the people they get advice from, the people they admire.

I have been in a situation where I was hanging out with people, and I could see myself changing and gradually becoming more and more like them. I eventually just..walked away.
In my efforts to sort of keep myself surrounded by good people, I realize I may have offended some. I have been called stuck-up or a snob countless times. Thing is, I don't mean to offend anyone. Don't you ever meet people and them from their words or actions, you just think "me and this person can't walk together"...
I've had friends with whom I constantly argued with because we just didn't not agree of life's issues. We had different values, different priorities, different definitions of "fun".

Does it mean I'm a snob, if I choose not to hang out with people that I consider..juvenile? or..bitchy...? Don't get me wrong, I talk to people. I don't dismiss people without giving them a chance. Unless of course, its one of those cases where I've heard so much about their "extra curricular activities" that I just don't want to go there..lol
I choose the company I keep. I don't look down on anybody. I just, choose my friends wisely coz I know how they'll influence me. Does that make a snob?

Caught Up In My Dreamz...

I've noticed something about myself lately: I am quite the dreamer. Sometimes, I dream so much that I get caught up in it and confuse the fine line between dreams and reality...lol..
I don't know if anyone has ever been in this situation. Where there's nothing much happening in your personal life, its all very quiet.

And so you find yourself, dreaming up situations you'd like to be in. You know, day dreams, I suppose, to make reality seem more exciting. The problem with this, for me, is that, I end spending so much of my time dreaming and not actually doing anything about it. It's like, my dreams are that perfect little world where I can control who says what to me..lol Then I wake up and have to live..reality...boring ol reality. I probably have myself to blame cause there is alot I could be doing to make reality more..exciting I suppose. But where I am right now, the excitement would be fun but extremely juvenile.

Sometimes Its easier to dream than to actually face the reality of the situation. Coz when it's time to face reality, then you hace to start analyzing things and trying to figure out where you're headed and what to do about it. That's just stressful. I'll just dream for one more day..:)
I realise I need to stop dreaming so much and maybe start living, but one more dream can't hurt right?..lol