Advice For My Daughters on Choosing a Husband

I have a huge problem (actually many problems, but let's just focus on one for now) with shows like The Bachelor as far as what they portray to young women about dating and choosing a husband.  Yes, a girl should expect some sort of romance and courting, but helicopter dates to exotic locations?  Not so much.  And besides, ANYONE can act lovely when they are on a helicopter date, especially one that he didn't pay for himself.  But in real life, with not fun situations, how does that guy act?  To me this is the most important criteria, because let's face it, married life is not an endless helicopter date!

I have one very important piece of advice for my daughters for many, many years from now when they are deciding on a man to marry.

Precious daughters, there is a key criteria I believe you should consider about a man before you agree to marry him.  Here it is:  Imagine being awakened at 2am by your child calling for you and walking into his room to find that your 9 year old son has thrown up over the side of his top bunk.  There is vomit running down the side of the bunk bed onto the bedding of your 5 year old son on the bottom bunk and coating the carpet below.  Now tell me, is this man you think you are in love with, the one you want to tackle this situation with?  Will he be your wingman, co-armed with rubber gloves and Clorox wipes or will he refuse to wake up to help?  Will he help the sick child in the bathroom while you evacuate the well child to a clean bed or crawl back in bed himself?  Will he wimp out, calling it "too gross", or will he stuff vomit-coated bedding into your washer and cheer, "It all fit!"  Will he complain or will he run the carpet cleaning machine as many times as needed until you finally sniff the carpet on your hands and knees and deem it back to "normal smelling"?


As you probably guessed from the level of detail, I do know this experience personally, and I was very thankful the man I picked over 13 years ago was the one beside me for that unfun situation.  I deal with a lot of minor middle of the night issues letting my husband sleep, and have since they were nursing babies, knowing my husband had to get up and go to an office job the next day, but I walked into that bedroom and knew I needed some serious back-up!

It was our second experience with the loveliness that is a child sleeping on the top bunk throwing up.  Love those bunk beds most of the time and the floor space they save, but hate them during a stomach sickness!  And we did have the conversation with the 9 year old once he felt better that went something like this, "I know it seems strange to throw up all over your own covers in bed, but really that would be much easier to clean up than if you throw up over the side of your top bunk!"


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