More Reading...More Landscaping

So we have been spending the entire summer getting our yard put in -- front and back. Today we FINALLY got the sod started. We will finish tomorrow (with the wonderful help of my family) and have green stuff in our front and back yard! Plus, we will be able to put the fence back up which means that we can FINALLY get Milo off his chain and let him run freely about the backyard.

Inbetween all this landscaping I've been putting off all my reading for my MSW requirements. Yea, no big deal until yesterday when I realized, "I have tests and seminars coming up in less than a month with no breaks till December and I have 3 books to read!" This is now a problem, as I am not too keen on doing homework at 9pm at night, and well, quite frankly I am just tired of school. So, I will be reading Bridges out of Poverty by Ruby Payne(along with the workbooks), finishing up Framework: Understanding Poverty by the same author; along with The Working Poor by Shipler and The Tragedy of American Compassion (and at this point I cant remember anymore authors names! lol) Oh yea, and I will be posting my thoughts from Fridays seminar "Fatherhood in Child Welfare." I honestly thought that was the best simulation and seminar I;ve been to yet with the county for traning. I am learning so much about the American system and enjoying it,. When I went to school to study international cultures, I thought they would be more interesting and challenging. However, I am learning that America is just as challenging to assess with families and class as any other culture. And what a blessing for me to actually be in an occupation that I went to school for! For this I consider myself very blessed. Its been almost 3yrs since I've done Culture Assessment, but it has been like riding a bike -- you never forget!

So the next few months will be lots of thoughts as I complete these books. And hopefully I will have pics to post of our completed yard by the end of this weekend! (and if we're lucky with weather, we'll have trees and shrubs by next weekend!)

Learning on Fatherhood

So on Friday I will be in a seminar all day on Fatherhood and Child welfare. KU (Univ. of Kansas) and DU (Univ of Denver) have partnered in a series of seminars for the Graduate School of Social Work. So far any of their trainings have been excellent and I actually walk away having learned something practical -- not just textbook.(check the link out!) It's supposed to be interactive learning and they emailed me a 132 page "pre training" to read before-hand. I'm really excited, as the better part of my work is landing in on the Child Welfare side of things. But here is what I've spaced to even think about -- there are dads out there who're trying to raise their kids just as much as those single moms. The reason this issue is really facinating me, is that I've currently got a client that is a single dad who's trying to "right" all the wrongs from the past 3 years. And on top of that, the majority of my clients have smaller children who're barely in elementary school -- he's got 2 high-schoolers. This is a different family with specific needs that are just as importantas all my other clients and I really want to have all the best info and "helps" to help this family through our Mentoring Program. A quote that I read in this reading by Gilder said "The unmarried male 'is disposed to criminality, drugs and violence. He is irresponsible about his debts, alcoholic, accident prone, and venereally diseased. Unless he can marry, he is often destined to a Hobbesian life -- solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'". This is, unfortunately, what our society is more and more looking to when we have a single male walk through our offices vs. a single mom. Then I read from Levine, "The roles of husbands and fathers are clear cut. The role is to maintain a job, to bring in a paycheck, to work as hard as necessary to financially support the family, and visibly be the authoritiarian." (Please see the previous quote!) If we have a group of dads (as my one client) who've never really been taught what it is to be "nurturing" and if he's never been a part of the day to day activities as the mother is, how then are they able to properly parent if there was no example for him to follow? Or if there was an abusive situation taking place so there was already disfunction within the home? How then can we expect these dads to just pick up and do the laundry, the homework projects, the house management, pick the kids up from school, take them to sports/activities, come home cook dinner, do homework, get ready for tomorrow, etc? These are the same things a single mom deals with. At any rate...

I've not yet finished reading all 132 pages, so I will wait to post all my thoughts on this issue after I've read the entire "booklet".

On a side note, having to go through the entire getting a Master's thing again, I'm tired! But it will be good for me to have an MSW, as it really is almost required in this field -- regardless of what other Master's you may have. And what would life be if I couldn't learn anymore!? I'd be bored. :)