And they were 3

Hello again! Where did I leave you last time you were here? Last time we spoke, I was telling you about some rough shit. I was going down a rabbit hole that literally took me almost a decade to recover. When I came to Spain for work, I really was just running away from all the bad things that were happening in my life. I was starting to accumulate some debt, had to get a second job because I couldn't pay my bills anymore on one salary. My girlfriend at the time had lost her job, and we were running on fumes. At about the same time, my parents were going through a rough patch and eventually got separated. My mother was a stay home mom and she took care of me and my sister while my father was the one bringing any income to the house. When he left, everything started to crumble. My mother was totally lost, my sister and I didn't want to get involved. We never talked much about those times.  They met at a very young age, got married, and had me when they were in their 20s. My

The way we raise our children nowadays is very different from the way our parents raised us, and even more how they were raised.   Things that were socially accepted then, are no longer acceptable now.  There is no one right way to parent a child. Different parents have different beliefs, values, and goals for their children. Some parents are more strict and authoritarian, while others are more lenient and permissive. Some parents are more involved and supportive, while others are more distant and detached. Some parents are more traditional and conservative, while others are more progressive and liberal. Each parenting style has its pros and cons, depending on the context and the personality of the child. However, research has shown that some parenting practices are more beneficial than others for the child’s well-being and development. For instance, studies have found that providing emotional warmth, setting clear boundaries, encouraging autonomy, fostering curiosity, and promotin

In 1996, school was over for me and I desperately needed a job. I didn’t want to live under my parents’ roof anymore and was feeling a bit lost. I worked in construction for a while, but it wasn’t for me. I needed something else. At the time, I was in a relationship with my girlfriend. We’d been together for almost 8 years and hadn’t talked about getting married or anything, but it seemed like the natural next step. However, it still didn’t feel quite right to me. A long-time friend of mine managed to get me a job at the airport working for a security company with TWA as its client. It was great! For the first time in many years, I felt like I had found the right job for me. Little me, who had barely left my hometown, was now dealing with passengers and people from all over the world. It felt right. It didn’t matter what time I started work. I was pulling 6 am shifts and coming home a few hours later with the rest of the afternoon to myself. Living at my parents’ house and earning my o

I was starting to write about why I never liked playing football when I started thinking about my friends, my childhood friends, those friends you make when you are so little that you don’t recall meeting. At least that’s how I remembered it. We were a group of kids that grew up together in a small town near Lisbon. It had a steady growth in the ’70s when many people from the former colonies returned to Portugal after civil wars started breaking there. The farthest memories I have of getting to know any of my friends are so blurry, I can’t travel back that far. But there we were, our street was separated into small groups of buildings, and we'd made friends pretty much depending on which street you lived. For example, if my building block was part of street A, I would probably spend most of the time playing with my friends there, but would eventually play with friends from street C, but would never play with kids from street B. They were terrible, so bad! Ahahaha, just ki

After the birth of my daughter, my wife and I were sucked into a life that we have never anticipated, and it was hard, let me tell you. As humans are never prepared for what comes along with the birth of a child. Friends, family members can tell you everything about their or their friends' experiences about parenthood, and it really doesn't matter until you're faced with your own child, in your arms, waking up at odd hours, every 2 hours pretty much! The tensions that build up between couples due to sleep deprivation is something to consider, it can be your happiest time, but it can also become a living nightmare. Going back to the day Olivia was born. She was a beauty of a newborn! I'm not saying this because I'm her father (well yeah I am!), but she was delivered through a c-section and did not have to endure the struggles of a natural birth, yeah babies go through a lot of trauma when they come out of a womb and then on through a tiny hole called vagin

Hello again! Still there? Well, I’ve decided to give it another go and write a little more about myself and my quirks (lol, little). Parenthood and Life: What Does That Mean? For me, parenthood wasn’t part of my plan for a big chunk of my younger life. I later realized that this was partly because I hadn’t found the right person - someone I could trust to be the mother of my children. Having a child was something I never expected and I had no idea how much it would impact my life. I always had a vague idea of what becoming a father would be like and how hard it would be. My daughter was born three years ago and she was such a beautiful baby. She looked like a porcelain doll with smooth skin that glowed from all the fluids still in her skin. And then the nurses brought her to me and asked if I wanted to hold her. Puff! What a feeling! I immediately realized that she was my responsibility. I was so overwhelmed that it didn’t seem real. I felt like I was experiencing an out-of-body thing