TV ads/Desperate/Swap/Stepfamilies/Tips/Butterfly - 10/04

[Smart Marriages ®]

subject: TV ads/Desperate/Swap/Stepfamilies/Tips/Butterfly - 10/04


approved: wonder

subject: TV ads/Desperate/Swap/Stepfamilies/Tips/Butterfly - 10/04


- MARRIAGE AD AWARD?
- ADVERTISERS DIVORCE ABC'S OFFENSIVE "HOUSEWIVES"
- WIFE SWAP
- TAPE PACKAGES
- MOVING IN CAN BE A DIFFICULT TRANSITION FOR A SECOND SPOUSE
- TIPS FOR A WISER WEDDING AND BEYOND
- MAN CREATES BUTTERFLY HOUSE FOR HIS WIFE
##########################
- MARRIAGE AD AWARD?

Diane,
I saw a great commercial the other night. It was for Nyquil. There was a man
on business at a hotel. He couldn't sleep because of his cold. Room service
brought him a bottle of Nyquil and told him all the different ways he would
sleep. (i.e. like baby) The man wasn't pleased until the man said that he
would sleep like he was at home. It then flashed to him in the bed with his
wife cuddled up. What a sweet commercial!!! America may be catching on!!!!
Happy marriages are possible!!!
Nikita Penn - High Point, NC

This one sounds like a winner. We haven't presented the pro-marriage TV
commercial awards since '02, and I think it's time to reinstitute them. The
commercials we awarded in '02 were recycled for the next few years - in
fact, one of them, "Hands", is still is shown regularly, so it's probably
best to do this only every three years or so. I need all of you to send
nominations - email me or what's best is if you can tape and send a copy
that I can send to awards committee. To see the '02 winners (Dannon,
Volkswagon, Penny's, McDonald's, Walter Thompson Jewelry) go to
smartmarriages.com and click tv commercial awards in bottom right corner
under press releases. - diane

########################

- ADVERTISERS DIVORCE ABC'S OFFENSIVE "HOUSEWIVES"
Agape Press
By Allie Martin
October 20, 2004

(AgapePress) - An Internet activism campaign is being credited with an
exodus of advertisers from the ABC primetime drama Desperate Housewives.

Recently American Family Association-sponsored OneMillionMoms.com and
OneMillionDads.com encouraged members to call sponsors of the Sunday evening
show to encourage them to rethink their ad placement. So far Banquet Foods,
Lowe's, Kellogg's and Tyson Foods have yanked their advertising spots from
the show.

ConAgra, the company that produces Banquet pot pies, advertised on the
show's October 3 premiere, but pulled out as a sponsor the following week
after receiving 36,000 e-mailed protests. And Lowe's home improvement
company made the same decision after thousands of phone calls and e-mail
messages poured into the company's corporate headquarters. Kellogg's and
Tyson's too, have abandoned Desperate Housewives in response to concerned
consumers' outcry within the past two weeks since the show first aired.

A number of media outlets have highlighted the One Million Moms and Dads
activism websites, reporting on their success in convincing major
corporations to put their advertising dollars into more family-friendly
shows. Meanwhile, both sites are urging parents across America to keep
making their voices heard about Desperate Housewives and other offensive
programs, because some sponsors -- Swanson Foods, for instance -- apparently
have not received the message.

Randy Sharp, AFA's special projects director, says the ratings for the
sleazy prime-time soap opera are strong, but pro-family advertisers will be
concerned about the show's sexually explicit content. "While ABC does not
care about the average parent and their children -- the average family
viewer -- these corporations do," he says. "They know that people are their
bread and butter, whereas all the networks care about is money."

The AFA spokesman says many advertisers, once they learn they are
financially supporting a show that is offensive to average customers and
their families, quickly take measures to correct the problem. "I believe
corporations will rise above ratings," he says. "They're looking at the
content, the offensiveness of this programming and its effect on our
culture."

Sharp points out that, in one week alone, three major corporations listened
to the voices of a concerned public and put Desperate Housewives on their
"Do Not Advertise" list. He expects the new ABC drama, with its explicit
sexuality and other morally questionable content, will continue to lose
advertisers as more complaints pour in from concerned moms and dads across
America.

x 2004 AgapePress all rights reserved.
###########################
- WIFE SWAP
This article (below) on stepfamilies reminds me to tell you about the
interview I did last week on two other TV shows - Wife Swap and Trading
Spouses. I said I'd seen them both and I thought they are the best
illustration of what it's like to be a stepmother or to form a stepfamily -
how difficult it is to move in and try to raise another mommie's children.
I also said I thought these shows were great "divorce prevention" tools -
that we should make them required viewing for couples who are thinking the
grass is greener down the street. I think they're definitely worth watching
- and maybe using in your marriage education classes.
###########################
- TAPE PACKAGES
Also, reminds me to respond to the many of you who have suggested that we
make MORE packages like the African American DVD/CD package. Several of you
have suggested we make one on Stepfamilies. I agree it's a great idea - but
I have so little time to pull it together. If you'd like to help, just email
me a list of the tapes (conference year and session #) you'd put in a
package and I'll get the tape company to work on it. Any topic. We do have
that GREAT package on Infidelity featuring Shirley Glass in "Not Just
Friends: The New Crisis of Infidelity" in both a keynote and also a 90-min
special master workshop for just $35 on DVD or video. Package #754-GL -
indicate whether you want DVD or Video. Free shipping/handling. And, the
African American Marriage special is phenomenal - a DVD with 10 plenary
presentations and five 90-min workshops on DVD for only $49.
To order, call 800-241-7785 or visit Playback Now
http://www.playbacknow.com/index.cfm

###################################
- MOVING IN CAN BE A DIFFICULT TRANSITION FOR A SECOND SPOUSE

Moving in can be a difficult transition for a second spouse
Wall Street Journal
Oct. 20, 2004
Moving in can be a difficult transition for a second spouse
BY JEFFREY ZASLOW


The sun was setting over Grand Rapids, Mich., when Christy Borgeld and her
new husband, in a cathartic gesture, heaved a bed into a trash bin.

It was the bed Borgeld shared with her first husband before their divorce.
Now her second husband was moving in with her and her four children. Though
other reminders of Husband No. 1 would be tougher to excise from the house,
tossing the bed was "a symbol of moving on," says Borgeld. "For me, it was
goodbye, good riddance. My new husband felt better, too."

Of course, that was just a start. How do new spouses move smoothly into the
closets, kitchen and bedroom of their predecessors? Whether they're marrying
a young divorcee or an octogenarian widower, emotional landmines are
everywhere.

More and more Americans now face this challenge. Older empty-nesters often
don't realize how tricky it is to build a new relationship while staying put
in a homestead jammed with reminders of the old one. And in the wake of a
divorce, younger parents assume kids from earlier marriages will be more
stable if they're not uprooted. But children often resent the newcomer as an
intruder x and the ghost of a previous spouse can haunt a home forever.

Joy Baxter of Walnut, Calif., says it took seven years and three remodelings
for her to feel psychologically comfortable after moving into a home her
husband had shared with his first wife. The ex-wife often returned to the
house and headed for her two daughters' bedrooms, as if it were still her
home.

"I'd stand at the front door, frozen," says Baxter. "I felt very
threatened."

Many women never feel the house is theirs, says Perdita Norwood, who runs a
support group for stepmoms in Branford, Conn. She tells of one woman who
tried to rearrange the family kitchen. "She was shorter than the first wife,
so she put things on lower shelves where she could reach them," says
Norwood. "She'd be looking for a salt shaker and find it had been put back
on a higher shelf. She couldn't tell if the children were being difficult or
just doing it out of habit."

Divorce mediators, marriage therapists and family advocates often advise
couples to start fresh in a new house if they're financially able.
Otherwise, prepare for resistance. "A child might say, 'Don't dare move that
ashtray! That's where my mom kept it!' " warns Margorie Engel, president of
the Stepfamily Association of America. (About 35 percent of Americans are
now intertwined in stepfamilies.)

Second wives and stepchildren aren't the only ones who struggle with this
transition. When second husbands move in with new wives, they're often
uncomfortable living in a place that was paid for by another man.

Men whose new wives move in with them also have to navigate between memories
they want to preserve and the new spouse's desire to leave her imprint on
the home. One man told me his new wife is upset because many of the touches
in his home x paintings, dishes, furniture x were his first wife's.

"Some of these things are important to me," he says. "I did have a past life
with a spouse, but it was my life, too."

A new spouse can certainly change the decor in the master bedroom, but
changes elsewhere, especially in kids' rooms, "should occur so gradually,
they're imperceptible," advises Barbara LeBey, a former family-court judge
in Atlanta who has written a new book, "Remarried With Children."

She also says children shouldn't be discouraged from displaying photos of a
parent who is no longer in the home.

People whose spouses have died after long marriages can leave some reminders
of them but should trim down the displays before a new spouse moves in.
Mementos such as your giant 25th anniversary portrait should be put in
storage or given to your adult children, says Sam Margulies, a couples
mediator in Greensboro, N.C.

New spouses who move into a home where a first spouse has died must accept
that "dead people become more perfect every day, and the ghost is always
sitting at the table," says Engel. She says a late spouse should be
considered a continuing member of the household. Her advice: Look in a late
wife's cookbook for the most-stained pages, then ask the kids to help fix
their mom's specialties.

Diane Safran, a therapist in Westport, Conn., worked with a girl whose
terminally ill mother had a long talk with her, giving her permission to
love the next woman in her father's life. Though the house was sold after
the mother's death, the father remarried and recreated the daughter's
bedroom in his apartment.

Not all parents are so accommodating, however. New York attorney Harold
Mayerson was involved in a case where a second wife moved into her new
husband's loft and hired a consultant in feng shui, the Chinese art of
creating harmonious energy in a home. After the consultant suggested turning
a bedroom into an office, the man's 17-year-old daughter's bedroom was taken
away from her. "It was a shock," says the daughter, now a college student.
"That had been my room forever." She doubts the loft will ever have good
energy.

Still, some couples can thrive in an old homestead. Baxter says she now has
a loving bond with her stepkids and is friendly with her husband's ex. A
turning point came seven years after she moved into the house. The ex was
over for her daughter's birthday party and asked to use the bathroom.

"Sure," said Baxter, "it's down that hall." Then she caught herself, and
both women laughed. "That's when I realized it really wasn't her house
anymore."

######################

- TIPS FOR A WISER WEDDING AND BEYOND

This article features Rev Dion Evans, Nisa Muhammad and Wade Horn.
The Argus
10/20/2004

Tips for a wiser wedding and beyond: Advice, education for newlyweds
By Monique Beeler, STAFF WRITER

ALWAYS go to bed loving and smiling.

Make God part of your relationship.

Keep in mind that your children need a mother and a father in the home.

These are bits of marital wisdom offered up by friends and relatives
attending the Oct. 9 wedding reception of Joe Conway Perry and Sophia
McKnight Perry at Oakland's Preservation Park.

"My advice is that they love each other and communicate," says Ivery
McKnight, 64, of Oakland. "Talk things out. Don't stay angry long."

And never go to bed angry at each other, she adds.

"I tried that once," says her table mate Rose Jackson, 62, of San Pablo. "I
was up for a week."

The women, both aunts of the bride, share a knowing laugh before resuming a
more serious discussion.

Spirituality should play a big role in keeping the couple united, Jackson
says.

"When they serve God and keep Him in their marriage, it's bound to work,"
she says. "Three strands are stronger than two."


Previous generations of newlyweds had little more than this kind of
home-spun advice to guide them through the potential pitfalls of marriage.
Today, couples don't have to go it so alone.

"It's easier to get a marriage license than a driver's license," says Nisa
Muhammad, founder of the Wedded Bliss Foundation. "But there's no education
required to marry someone and wreck their lives. There's something wrong
with this picture."

It's a picture that's gradually changing.

Organizations such as Muhammad's foundation, which sponsors nationwide Black
Marriage Day events, are finding ways not only to celebrate marriage among
black people but to teach couples the skills they need to make their
relationships work.

In March, the Rev. Dion Evans of Chosen Vessel Church in Oakland organized a
Black Marriage Day celebration to highlight the health, social and financial
benefits of marriage; point the spotlight on couples who have created
healthy marriages and enjoy dance performances related to the subject.
Speakers talked about issues from fatherhood to the power of marriage
education.

"The whole community came out to see the competition and to see these dance
routines to the theme of marriage," Evans says. "We did it this last year at
Jack London Square. It was awesome. We did a national three-day conference
at the Marriott illuminating the issues."

Evans, married for nine years, also spearheaded the California State Healthy
Marriage Initiative. Working in communities including Hayward, Richmond,
Oakland and Berkeley, the initiative spreads the message to black and
Hispanic couples that pre-marriage and marriage education will strengthen
their unions.

"If you get educated up front, you know what to expect going in," Evans
says. "Then you're more able to cope with where you're going."

Grassroots programs such as Evans' that support the creation of functional
marriages also reflect what's beginning to happen on the national level.

In response to declining marriage rates among low-income couples, especially
those with children, the Bush administration has proposed spending $240
million annually on the Healthy Marriage Initiative to train couples to
develop interpersonal skills that will foster better, enduring marriages.

Opponents complain that the program redirects money from welfare reform to
the Healthy Marriage Initiative and might influence people to marry someone
they shouldn't.

Promoting the formation of families headed by married couples will help many
out of poverty, government officials argue.

Additionally, the marriage program is completely voluntary and no one is
coerced into marriage, particularly not into an unsafe or dysfunctional one,
says Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families in the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.

"We're trying to grow the percentage of households where the marriage is
healthy and stable and decrease the percentage of households that are
unhealthy and unstable," he says.

The program, which includes initiatives geared toward specific populations
such as blacks and Hispanics, targets lower-income people because they are
less apt to have access to marriage education or counseling on their own,
Horn says.

Evans worries that some black people may shy away from the program, because
they do not politically support President Bush. In this case, the pastor
says, couples should heed the message, not the messenger.

"The importance of education of marriage should not be rejected because
President Bush supports it," Evans says. "President Bush will come and he
will go, and yet our (marriage) statistics have been the same since
integration."
- QUESTIONS FOR THE LONG HAUL
The Argus
By Monique Beeler - STAFF WRITER

MANY couples who think they might like to marry have trouble communicating
with one another. Marriage education programs, such as the California State
Healthy Marriage Initiative, can help.

Run by the Rev. Dion Evans of Chosen Vessel Church in Oakland, the
initiative trains marriage educators and teaches couples the skills they'll
need to build a successful marital partnership. Educators also guide couples
through a list of 150 questions from an inventory called FOCCUS. The
questions get them talking about subjects from sex to having children. Each
person separately reads and answers questions by responding: agree, disagree
or uncertain.

Here are some FOCCUS questions:

We have discussed the ways our families solved problems and how this may
affect our problem solving.

I am concerned that in-laws may interfere in our marriage relationship.

We are in agreement about how we will make financial decisions between us.

In the past three years, 25 black couples have signed up for the program.

"The average couple who goes through FOCCUS and completes it gets married
within six months," Evans says. "Every single couple who started FOCCUS and
did not complete it did not get married."

That's fine with Evans.

"Our goal as marriage educators is not to get people married, it's to better
prepare the ones that do."

A list of marriage resources:

- California State Healthy Marriage Initiative, (510) 653-0113 or e-mail
cshmi at cshmi.org

- Facilitating Open Communication Understanding and Study --
www.foccusinc.com

- Family Wellness Associates, (831) 440-0279, e-mail
families at familywellness.com or check www.familywellness.com

- National Healthy Marriage Initiative, www.acf.hhs.gov

- PAIRS Foundation, www.pairs.com

- Preventative Relationship Enhancement Program -- www.prepinc.com
#################################
- MAN CREATES BUTTERFLY HOUSE FOR HIS WIFE

A challenge to those who don't think they're creative enough to do something
special for their spouse. Or, maybe it's an example of how doing something
nice for your spouse often ends up being a great gift you give yourself.

The Salinas Californian
October 16, 2004
By JANICE AUSTIN

Sonja Jackson's doctors said bright colors would be easiest for her to see.

So her husband transformed their home into a wonderland

People smile when they see J Jackson's Pacific Grove house. Many stop to
look and take pictures.

Jackson's gift of love to his wife has turned out to be a gift to the
community.

The eye disease retinitis pigmentosa has been stealing Sonja Jackson's
eyesight for more than 35 years. Eight years ago, she became blind in her
right eye. She has only limited vision in her left.

When a specialist told the couple that bright colors would be easiest for
her to see, J Jackson got out a paintbrush. During the past seven years, he
has transformed their home into a magical wonderland.

Jackson painted a single butterfly on the side of the house for his
sweetheart.

"While I was looking at that butterfly, it hit me that we're in Pacific
Grove, the butterfly capital," he said. "I drove around and saw very few
butterflies, so I decided to make a butterfly house."

Jackson limits his painting to four hours per day. Much of his work is dots
that he patiently paints with his small brush.

"It's wonderful therapy," Jackson said. "I sit very peaceful and just do a
dot at a time. I don't have to think about anything, I don't have to worry
about anything."

The 67-year-old has twice survived bladder cancer and has two artificial
knees because of arthritis.

"I live a very simple life," said the gregarious Jackson. "I think that the
simpler you are, the happier you are.

"I'm hoping I'll have it done enough in four more years to be able to give
free tours," he said. "Everybody's dying to see the inside of this house."

He will start tours on the glittery yellow Butterfly Brick Road along the
side of the house.

"People who see the house feel like they're in a little fairy land, they
want to just clap their hands," Jackson said. "In the last two years, I have
talked to someone from everywhere in this world, New Zealand, South Africa,
Australia and all over the United States."

Jackson, a massage therapist, loves to have children and senior citizens
visit.

Recently a lady from a convalescent home in Seaside came by. She had told
her son who was visiting from Texas that for her 94th birthday she wanted to
see the butterfly house.

"She was so appreciative of this house," he said. "I try to bring happiness
to people."

Jackson has only a sixth grade education and no artistic background.

"I have never done anything like this in my life until I picked up this
paintbrush seven years ago," he said.

At age 9, Jackson ran away from a violent father and went to live with his
mother, who worked as a prostitute. At 11, he went to work and help his
mother. It wasn't until he was in his 50s, he learned he had severe
dyslexia.

"I had a very unique mother," he said. "She was the most caring woman that
I've ever known."

Jackson has turned down multi-million dollar offers for his home.

"There's no price on this house," Jackson said. "If you offered me $20
million, I couldn't sell it. I love this town so much, you couldn't drag me
out of here."

"He started this for me," Sonja said. "But I think it's for everybody now."


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