Not A Bag A Mout Janeth Benjamin & Shar Walker

We are West Indians and it apparently is our culture to have multiple children. That’s a colonial legacy but also a conversation for another time. But how many of us were raised with ALL our siblings and how many of us learned about an extra brother or sister down the line?
There is the pressure to keep the “family” together, so infidelity and children resulting from those actions get le behind.
The Wives treat the outside child like a plague and the children within the marriage typically shun their sibling.
Is that right? Did the child ask to be part of this mess and how can we start changing this mentality?
Let’s Speak On It

● Stepparents aren’t all evil but what causes some step-parents to treat the children of their partner/husband poorly?
● What effect does this have on the child?
● Do you recommend the children forming a bond?
○ But is this dependent on the relationship between ALL the parental units?

New friends versus old friends
● Expectations
● Boundaries
● What happens aer the friendship ends.
● How do you test the value of friendship?
● Friendships need work too.

Normally, most shows start with the pretty side of a relationship because it is what people like to see but what about the underbelly of motherhood? There are good mothers and we celebrate them constantly but what about the mothers who make decisions that negatively affect their children?
What happens to those children and their adult lives?
● The importance of a parent-child relationship
● How oen do you see mother-child trauma issues?
● Mothers who abuse their children or use take out the
pain from the father on the children
● Mothers who chose relationships over their children
● Mothers who have favored a certain child over the others?

As a woman, how important is that father-daughter relationship?
If the relationship was strained but later mended, how important is that road to forgiveness.

As the only “single” person here tonight. I think it’s okay
for me to open up. Mr. Williams here has been married for quite some time and although I didn’t get to attend the nuptials, Shar and I started planning her wedding to Roger in UWI library, probably long before he proposed. I was a maid of honor and a bridesmaid and I see firsthand what planning and executing a wedding looks like. But marriage is so much more than the big day.

The five love languages are five different ways of expressing and receiving love: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.

Not everyone communicates love in the same way, and likewise, people have different ways they prefer to receive love. The concept of love languages was developed by Gary Chapman, Ph.D., in his book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts, where he describes these five unique styles of communicating love, categories he distilled from his experience in marriage counseling and linguistics.