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6A ♦ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2007 Women can find emotional help through other women QUESTION: You have sug gested that women should seek to meet their emotional needs outside of their mar riage. What do you mean? DR. DOBSON: This principle is particularly important with regard to an emotionally vulnerable woman who is married to a stoic, unromantic man. If she looks to him as the pro vider of all adult conversation and the satisfier of every emotional need, their marriage can quickly run aground. He has no clue about how to deal with her “soul hun ger” or how to make her happy. When she begins to realize that he will never be what she wants, discontent begins to brew in the relationship. What can be done, then? A woman with a normal range of emotional needs cannot simply ignore them. Something deep within her yearns for fulfillment. One answer is for women in this situation to sup plement what their husbands can There’s nothing like the clarion call of the ice cream truck Have you ever seen a dog when it hears a train coming? The dog hears it about 40 seconds before you do. Its head pops up alert ly. The dog’s ears spring to attention. It looks around with a curious, Len Robbins Columnist airpub@planttel.net puzzled glare, one eyebrow cocked, trying to figure out what exactly that sound is. Is it a cat? Another dog? A giant ribeye tumbling down the street? About the time you hear the familiar rumble of train tracks, the dog has already figured it out and has gone back to napping or licking itself or whatever it was Whan! the secret ward in year house? By GLYNN MOORE Morris News Service Not long ago, The Augusta Chronicle’s features section asked you to play a little contest: All you had to do was tell us your family secrets. Not all your secrets (otherwise, we’d have just another TV reality show) but the ones involving expressions that mean something special to your family but not to outsiders. The contest was a response to an article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that was based on Family Words: A Dictionary of the Secret Language of Families, a book by veteran language guru Paul Dickson. Confused? Let me give you a personal example. For years, my wife and I had the code word “taffeta,” which we would utter when it appeared the other was having a little too much fun at a party, revealing confidential matters or becoming overly flirtatious. We had stolen the line from the 1974 Mel Brooks film Young Frankenstein, in which Dr. Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) leans over to kiss his fiancee, Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn), who was a bit icy. As he draws close, she says: “Taffeta, darling.” Thinking it a term of endearment, he Perry Family Medical Associates Most Major Insurance Plans Accepted. Dr. James Dobson Focu.s on the Family That is precisely how women dealt with social needs in centuries past. Men worked 60 or 70 hours per week and had little time or energy for what might be called “romantic activities.” But a well integrated society of women filled the void. They worked together, had babies together, cooked and canned together, and went to church together. And somehow, it was enough. Why does feminine soci ety not exist in the same way today? Because many women are doing prior to the interrup tion. I had my “dog hearing a train” moment the other day while playing with my kids in the backyard. With yelling and laughing and running going on all around me, I heard it faintly in the distance. It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I stopped what I was doing, lifted my head skyward and listened intently. It sounded like merry-go-round music, but with a faintly recognizable melody - different than reg ular carousel music. Suddenly, it clicked. “If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain... if you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain...” What? There’s a merry go-round playing “The Pina Colada Song” in my neighborhood? It was then I realized what was emit- Announces the addition of Jody Velie, MD Board Eligible, American Board of Family Medicine Specializing in Women’s & Children’s Health New Patients Welcome 938 Carroll Street • Perry 987*2212 give by cultivat ing meaningful female relation ships. Having lady-friends with whom they can talk heart-to-heart, laugh and cry, and raise their children can be vital to mental health. "As I neared the backdoor, without breaking stride, I screamed 'I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAMI ITS THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!"’ ting those glorious/hideous sounds. I took off running as fast as I could, headed toward the house and my change jar, leaving my kids bewil dered and alone in the yard. As I neared the backdoor, without breaking stride, I screamed “I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM! IT’S THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!” When I was q kid, the ice cream came to our neigh borhood about once every four years. But no matter when it came, or where we were, the carnivalesque jin- softly replies: “Taffeta, sweetheart.” She pulls away: “No, the dress is taffeta. It wrinkles so easily.” For years, my wife and I “taffeta’d” each other until, one day, it lost its power. She claims I once failed to honor the taf feta; I maintain I am still taffeta-worthy. See what the contest is about now? Doesn’t matter; it’s over. We received 43 submissions of some cool words that families didn’t mind divulging for the common good - and the chance of a $25 prize. It was my honor to read and judge them. I noticed some patterns. For instance, families have their own expressions for that household god, the TV remote control. “Flipper-dipper” was the term written in by one reader. On the other hand, another calls it the “zapper.” (In the Moore house hold, it is simply the “clicker.”) Kids say the darndest things, and a lot of entries reflected that. “Chickyboms,” according to Lee Carmichael, is “any mys terious or unusual food,” as coined by her 3-year-old. Also from the mouths of babes were “malkit” (chocolate milk), “dotdog” (hot dog), “lasterday” (a jumble of yes terday and last night), “naive” (naive) See MOORE, page ioA OPINION employed (the neighborhoods are empty), and because the world has become so mobile. The extend ed family has disintegrated and the culture has moved on. Thus, female companionship is often dif ficult to find, and many younger women, especially those with two or more preschoolers, abandon the search for friendship. It is simply too much trouble. To the young wives who are reading these words, I urge you to invest some time in your female friends - even though you are all busy. Resist the temptation to pull into the walls of your home and wish for someone to talk to. Stay involved as a family in a church or a club that meets social needs. Remember that you are sur rounded by many other women with similar feelings. Find them. Care for them. Give to them. And in the process, your own self esteem will rise. Then when you are content, your marriage will also flourish. 53685 It sounds simplistic, but that’s the way we are made. We are designed as social creatures who don’t do well in isolation. Don’t let that happen to you. QUESTION: In the interest of keeping peace in the house hold, you have suggested leni ency with rebellious teens on issues that don’t really mat ter. What does this mean in practical terms? Give me some examples of demands that would rock my daughter’s boat unnecessarily. DOBSON: Well, you will have t,o decide what the non-negotia bles are to you and your hus band. Defend those demands, but lighten up on lesser matters. That may indicate a willingness to let her room look like a junkyard for awhile. Close the door and pretend not to notice. Does that surprise you? I don’t like lazy, sloppy, undisci plined kids any more than you do, but given the possibilities for chaos gle-jangle of its loud speaker was instantly recognizable. Because of its rare appearances in our locale, the neighborhood kids went berserk with excite ment. It could be 3:30 in the morning and we would have heard it through our slumber, jumped out of bed, scrambled through our par ents’ change jars, or in my particular case, my father’s pockets, and been waiting in front of our house before the ice cream truck turned the corner. My 5-year-old son had told me there was an ice cream truck in town, but like the "4^ ' ' fl| jB(HBf ' v «_ i - m/Wmk Irik !!MBR mmmmmws* v ng*va ... ■ -: .,,,, i jHLM^g- ■ ■ Odds of a child being diagnosed with autism: i in 150 ipw ■' w j ~^^*** Some signs to look for: £ No big smiles or other joyful | No babbling by j No words by MBS s&mqpm, expressions by 6 months. j 12 months. 16 months. feuKH To learn more of the signs of autism, visit autismspeaks.org AUTISM SPEAKS it's time to Sister. . O >iVi7 Atjtftm Spate «k. v Ai:fisrr : r-pe»*s v .writ's'Hn* To •;.«***' fc design ate taKfcmKftsawrtnd Autism speai> ««x.AH fqjfcts story he told me about the monster that ate his bongos - I thought it too good to be true. I met the ice cream truck in front of our house before it turned the comer, wav ing a $5 bill high in the air, standing on my tip toes. My children weren’t far behind, screaming “I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM!” - one of the few phrases in all the world that is impossible to utter in a whisper. Hearing our rancor, some other neighborhood kids met us on the street and I, being more excited than them, proudly proclaimed that all the ice cream was on me. I found that some things have changed about the ice cream truck since I was a kid. Mainly, that $5 won’t buy HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL that this girl might precipitate, spit-shined rooms may not be all that important. You have to ask yourself this question: Is the behavior to which I object bad enough to risk turn ing the canoe upside down? If the issue is that important, then brace yourself and make your stand. But think through those intractable matters in advance and plan your defense of them thoroughly. Someday, when the currents have smoothed out again, you may look back with satisfaction that you didn’t add to the turbulence when your daughter was bobbing like a cork on a stormy sea. Dobson is founder and chair man of the board of the nonprofit organization Focus on the Family, P.O. Box 444, Colorado Springs, CO. 80903; or www.family.org. Questions and answers are excerpt ed from The Complete Marriage and Family Home Reference Guide and Bringing Up Boys, both pub lished by Tyndale House. ice cream for all the kids in your neighborhood anymore, or even all the kids in your family. I had to go back in the house for a second raid of my change jar. Secondly, the ice cream truck musi cal selections have become a tad more contemporary than I recall. As we all sat on our back porch, eating our nutty buttys and ice cream sand wiches and fudgesicles in blissful silence, J heard the ice cream truck drive off, a new selection emanating from its speakers - Jimmy Buffett’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” as if played at a circus. Ain’t life grand? Broccoli and Cauliflower Plants Lewis Farms Nursery lUitL 830 Hwy. 26 - Elko (478) 954-1507 154052