The Little Drummer Boy

I was rereading some of the comments left by you all and while I can say that every one of them has affected me in some way, something the Bubble Wrap Girl wrote reads rings in my head. She wrote:

"You control you and you either let yourself be happy or you let yourself be unhappy and the only person that is to blame for your “happiness” is yourself!"

I think I finally understand something that I've been struggling with a lot in these past few months. The question that's been playing all types of polka music in my head lately is the following - What the hell has happened to the moral standards in this country?

In 1950 the divorce rate was about 11%. Two years ago the divorce rate was just over 50%. Am I the only one bothered by this?

BWG's comment was fueled by motherly instinct. Care for your children and keep them from any harm. Even if and especially when that harm comes from yourself or your spouse. The ones we love and the ones who we believe love us are the ones who can hurt us the most. And I agree with BWG, you have children who didn't ask for any of this so suck it up and deal.

As always our camps will divide a bit between the parents and the lovers/caregivers of our children. Not all parents are caregivers and you don't have to be a parent to truly love a child. I loved/love my nieces because of who they are as people, not who their parents are. But for this train ride let's take the children out of the equation.

There are people in this world who do not fully understand the word happiness and unfortunately we all must suffer for their ignorance. Lucky us. Let's poke them with sticks for a bit shall we.

One of our inalienable rights as written in the Declaration of Independence is "the pursuit of happiness." Some of the wisest men of their time, in an attempt to create a document giving this country direction specifically added the word 'pursuit' because they knew, as any semi intelligent person should know, happiness is not a thing to be given.

And yet there are those who cry "I'm not happy, it must be your fault" Dontcha' just wanna smack 'em a little? And some of these people are fairly intelligent. So what the hell is going on?

1950 - 1960 and WWII is over. The country is seeing a resurgence of family structure and values as our servicemen return home. The Immigration and Naturalization Act is signed and more people are coming to America to start new lives. Racial Segregation is ruled unconstitutional. TV shows like "Father Knows Best" and "Ozzie and Harriet" are what the people are watching. We are a country with strong moral and family values.

But then we hit a snag.....

The 1960's began the "Me" revolution. A counter-culture sparked by an unpopular war tore itself away from the mass, swelled in rank and asked "What's best for me?" Where the earlier generations stood united, the children of the 60's were given a legitimate excuse to look elsewhere for purpose. They couldn't trust a government when the very institution lost interest in Viet Nam and made excuses as to why it was unwinnable. We lost our innocence and from then on we questioned everything and everyone.

'What's best for me?'

And we had almost 4 decades to pull it back together and we failed. Can't trust the government to be honest, can't trust the clergy to keep their hands off little boys, can't trust mothers to not drive their cars into a lake while her two children are asleep in the back seat, and we can't trust fathers not to beat the mothers. So what the hell do we do? We take what we can get and hope that we can hold on to it for as long as possible.

And damn it, someone owes me happiness. So along comes the government to give you that illusion. And it's called......No Fault Divorce.

Most states are no-fault divorce states. I believe that only New York is not a no fault divorce state.

This means that the party who wants a divorce does not have to show a specific misbehavior on the part of the other spouse, such as adultery, abandonment, drunkenness, addiction, abuse, etc. The party simply has to state that there is no chance the marriage will be patched up.

Funny I seem to recall when growing up everyone telling me that nothing was impossible. This doesn't seem to apply with divorce. "No chance the marriage will be patched up?" So the government is saying 'hey, why bother yourself with the work of trying to put a marriage back together. In three months you can be happy again.'

So getting married is a religious ceremony, but divorce is a legal one. You ask god to bind you then you ask Big Brother to cut the ties away. How the Fu@k do you people sleep at night? It doesn't matter right? You're happy.

And when you come home at 2:30am smelling of cheap cologne and sweat while you're children are fast asleep...does that make you happy dear? Tomorrow you will go to church and act all righteous like your actions are just, do you count on god to give you a free pass just cause it's Mothers Day? Or is god just a convenience too you. He's looking out for my children too. So pick a circle. A bunch of them apply. It's a Divine Comedy after all. As long as you're happy.