Is your twelve year old son experimenting with drugs?

If you have the merest inkling that your son might be experimenting with meth or other drugs, even if only occasionally, it is your immediate attention to the matter that might save him from a hard life of drug abuse. It is not easy to deal with a drug addict. Attending to the problem sooner rather than later will make it easier to deal with. Also, if you are the brother or sister to the drug addict, don’t pass the job of talking to your sibling to someone else but start dealing with it immediately. Depending on his nature, he will be in denial and say that he is not an addict, or he will cave in and say he needs help. Here are some things you can do to get your son to listen to his parents’ advice and act on it. You can have a gentle or gangbuster approach. Unfortunately, with drug addicts the former approach does not work too well by waiting for some miracle to happen and you have to deal with the matter head on.


• Know the names of the children he hangs out with. You can learn a lot about your son by taking cognizance of his friends. If any one of them uses drugs, tell him to cut the friendship. He will argue, but you are the boss and will deal with it by employing a no nonsense approach. You will go as far as speaking to the parents of these boys and alert them to the fact that their son is a user.

• Get involved by going to the school and asking for a progress report. If all his grades are poor offer to get him help.

• If you learn from the principal that he has stolen money to pay for drugs, take him to a clinic to test him for drug use. In America there are juvenile programs where problem kids spend a night in jail to see what it is like to be amongst hard core inmates. He will get a fright and an awakening when he sees all the teens in such harsh surroundings and all the rules they have to obey. They are spoken to by seasoned criminals and thieves and it is a frightening experience for a twelve year old. On the bright side, there are many success stories of youths who stay in jail overnight and are scared straight.

• If showing your son the inside of a jail and talking to him does not work and he persists in using drugs, plan an intervention where his family and friends read him a letter stating how much he means to them and that they care about him, and get him to agree to go to rehab. If he refuses, unfortunately, you will have to do it the hard way by having a car ready to take him to rehab where he will stay for two months.

• It is important that you not give in to any of his demands or denials that he is a drug addict, and do all you can to see he gets help.

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Having a foreign au pair in your house who doubles as a student

Having anyone strange in your house for any length of time can probably be the most important thing to adjust to as it entails giving up some of your space. Having an au pair to look after the children can be doubly so as you are responsible for her while she is with you. If she is a student continuing her studies, she will need time to do her schoolwork as well as do some light chores. If she cannot speak English well, you will have to learn to be patient. Your children will have to adjust to this new person in the house. There will be an extra person at the supper table. There will be more laundry, more to clean up and your student has to make it easier for you. Here are some ideas and things you can do to facilitate an easy relationship where everyone benefits.

• While your au pair is from a country where English is not the first language, your children have a chance to learn a new language and the au pair also peps up her English. Learning a new language together can be fun.

• Your children can also learn some new recipes by sampling food the au pair has prepared and broadening their culinary experience.

• Establish a clear time of the day when the au pair will have two hours to herself to relax in her room and study. If possible, let her have her own room. Everyone needs to be alone some time during the day.

• Introduce your au pair to your friends and neighbors so they know there is someone living with you and particularly if anyone has a daughter the same age. Help her make some friends.

• Take some insurance that will protect her while she is in your care.

• Take her along on some of your activities such as all of you going to the skating rink or the park or a local baseball court.

• The museum is also a good place to visit as your au pair’s stay is a learning experience. She will return home eventually and take her experiences in a foreign country with her.

• If your au pair seems extraordinarily quiet, talk to her as it is not easy to leave your family and live in another family’s home so far away. Remember, she is someone elses child.

• Let her make a call to her parents in Europe once a month. These small little things will make her feel more comfortable and at ease.

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Is marrying out of your culture harder than marrying out of your faith

Marrying out of your culture is different from marrying someone from another faith. That would be religion. Marrying out of your culture is about your environment, what you are used to, where you were born and grew up, the way language is spoken, the way food is made, the kind of spices people are used to, on and on. The comic Trevor Noah talks about culture in one of his comedic performances and how people cannot differentiate between culture and faith. He went on to say that he is colored, but grew up in Durban, and did not speak and sound the same as a Cape Town colored; nuances, lingo and so on. Yet, the culture is firmly embedded in all of us whether from Durban or the Western Cape.



The familiarity of culture

For people who want to broaden their horizons and live overseas and find a partner in Australia, New Zealand or England it might seem a breeze at first when you meet someone you like and everything is working between you. Eventually, however, when you are over the novelty and things go wrong, you want to go back to your roots. It is not religion that separates you in this case; it is the warmth and beauty of the oceans and mountains versus the freezing cold of a British winter. Humans want comfort. Still, a South African would be more at ease with New Zealand and Australia as they have something huge in common: a rugby culture. They can unite through a sport. They speak the same language when they speak of tackles, rucks and mauls. South African rugby fans are in awe of the All Blacks and the Wallabees, and likewise the boys from the Pacific are in awe of them. Even though one rugby player might live in the others country, they will always have a connection through sport.


Which is the harder then to live without? Live without the familiarity of your culture or live without the person you couldn’t marry because she is a Muslim and you are a Jew? I don’t know; they both seem equally hard. I would hate to have to make such a decision. For survival on earth I would choose culture; for life after death I would choose God.

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