All, Maybe it was finally seeing the Dark Knight, maybe it was celebrating my Dad's 60th birthday, or maybe it was the multiple beers and late in the night conversation around a campfire with my brothers and sister-in-laws, but I started thinking what it takes to be a good parent and raise children in these times. Wait...why did the Dark Knight get entered into this conversation? Well, the movie was phenomenal (now over 300 million in earnings in 10 days which beat the record of 14 days. Appears to be the first real challenger to the Titanic for most money of all time...600 million plus). Reagan loved it, I loved it, Heath Ledger will get nominated and the movie will nominated. And as the title says, very "dark". The themes are very political and very thought provoking. One overarching theme (and no I am not spoiling any major plotline here) is that a Hero isn't always the 'good guy', he/she is what somebody needs them to be. Hello parenting! I guess you could even include teaching in here as well. In our attempt to do these jobs, sometimes we all forget that we need to be a hero, not always a nice guy/girl. This can be difficult, but no one said these jobs were going to be easy. And they pay about the same too! So, as I finish up my summer as a 'full-time parent' and go back to becoming a 'full-time teacher', and sadly miss my children 3 nights a week with grad school stuff, I am reminded by the lessons my parents taught me and how I learned from them. If you don't learn anything from my email, please watch the video in the link provided at the end. This video has been watched by over 3 million people and the professor that became world-famous after giving his "Last lecture" just died of the cancer that motivated him to give that speech. He was a Hero, Batman was a Hero, my parents are heros, and hopefully we can all be heros to someone in our lives... (note...the following lessons were chosen due to their humorous memories or importance in my life)
Lesson #1: The birds and bees...and the pigs. I suppose their are many lessons that I try to remember so that I can teach my kids, however this one sticks out. This is one of my fears...teaching my children about this. And I am a biology teacher and a counselor and my wife is a physician! I think it can be traced back to my Dad's attempt with this process. These attempts were one of many topics discussed at our campout last week with my brothers. We all remember going on a day-long "sales-trip" with Dad and having the "talk". And the talk always began with "You seem to watch the pigs alot, have you ever seen the one big pig...." And you can guess how the rest went. The talk is akward no matter what, but using farm animals to explain the process of a boy growing up was a stretch at times. Do other pigs develop faster than some? Do the pigs laugh at the little pigs in the barn during their shower time? How does a boy pig know he has found the right girl pig or right 50 girl pigs? Although Dad meant well and tried his best at this strange talk, it was probably the sole reaason Reagan and I waited until we were married to act on these lessons. But the point is, Dad tried and he talked to us individually and made us understand the importance of growing up and what true love is all about.
Lesson #2: Finance. Yes, my parents devised many ways for us to learn about finance. From getting us investing in stocks by middle school, to picking weeds for pennies, to having quasi-performance reviews yearly. These reviews allowed us to go deep inside Dad's mind and attempt to understand his pay raise schedule. I was the only kid that did not get $5 or $10 for a weekly allowance, I got $124.83 a month based on 3.2% yearly raises. Once the check was in our hand, 1/2 went in the bank and another 10% went to church and our charity jar. Dad then taught us about debt as he would borrow from the charity jar only to pay it back just before we chose a charity to give it to. Funny thing, is that Dad never paid interest on those loans, yet here I am today paying my parents monthly on a loan they gave us for our house.....at 5% interest. It was 6% interest, but when I told Dad that 6% was the highest interest rate of any of our loans, he allowed us to re-finance and "buy a point" by taking them out to eat. Yes, the money lessons were many. I won't even get into how we had to dribble a basketball up and down the highway and write down our miles in order to later cash in those miles for a trip to Mo. Valley (the big city!) for dinner if we had enough miles. Yes, my parents were sort of an early credit card company program, complete with rewards and cash advance loans!
Lesson #3: "Can't is not a word". This is one I use a lot with Jack and it really works. However, sometimes he says other words I don't want him to say and I reply "Jack, you can't say that word". This causes him to say "Don't say that word Daddy" and then confusing conversation continues from there. As a child, I never really understood how damaging the word "can't" was, but now I do. "Can't" held Jack back from doing a lot early on as we tried to train him how bad of a word it really was. Now I am working on words and phrases like "I don't like this" and "I'm not good at that". I was reminded of this lesson many times from Mom and Dad growing up, each time making me angry when I realized they were right. I am sure Jack and Abby will be no different.
Lesson #4: Show your kids how proud you are of them. Again, this works in both teaching and parenting. I have programs like "Student of the Week", prizes for top scores on tests, I put up student work in the hallways, and I try to watch one of each extra-curricular event to see them play. One time, a parent emailed me and thanked me for giving her daughter a student of the week certificate. She said that she acted like it was nothing, yet it went up on her bedroom wall along with pictures of her friends, movie stars, and other things. Now I try to do that with my kids as much as possible. Sure, it is usually acting amazed at how much poop Jack can fit in one toilet bowl and how Abby can almost hit her mouth with her wobbly fork, but it makes a difference. So far today, I have been proud of Jack's hitting 1 of 10 pitches and Abby's ability to wipe her own nose. Yes, small successes on another Daddy daycare day. Oh yeah, and Jack had 2 poopies in the potty today!
Lesson #5 (final lesson for today): Prayer, hope, and help. My Grandpa George actually taught me one about "help" the best. During the floods of '93, I was constantly working to stay caught up mowing our yard, Grandpa's yard, and my neighbor's yard. On the off-chance that the sun came out, I would get on the mower and try to finish at least one lawn. When I was rushing to get his done, he flagged me down and told me to quit immediately. The river had gone out in Pisgah and the town was sand-bagging to save their town. I told him that I had to mow his lawn before the next rain. He didn't like that much and told me that as long as water was threatening the town, that was more important than cutting his grass to a lower height. He always thought helping others was more important than helping himself. Jack and Abby can't help others much yet, in fact, most times they actually do the opposite, but in time, they will hopefully understand this lesson as well. And its funny I use a flood story, because Iowa just got hit with a 6-8 inches of rain for the 3rd time in 8 days. Luckily the 3 nights were all in slightly different locations, but many areas have seen 15 inches of rain in the last 8 days. Most of Iowa averages 30-35 inches of rain for the whole year! We have been praying a lot lately that the rain doesn't hit our house, but I am reminded by what my Grandpa said and find myself praying for others more than our house now. Something must be working as our house has stayed dry and areas 10 miles to the East and 10 miles to the West last night got about 4 inches of rain, while we got only 1.4 inches. We are hoping and praying that the rain stops soon.....if not, I hope and pray that we can help those affected by the rain.
With just 3.5 weeks until I am back teaching again and away from my kids for what will seem like weeks at a time, I am getting more reflective about my first full summer "off" and hanging with the kids. I am sure I will think of more lessons along the way, but I thought that this was a good list to start me off. Remember, if you get some time this week, watch these videos, one is short, and one is almost an hour long. The hour-long video is a must however, you will not regret it! Take care...and stay dry!
Love&Prayers,
Ben
Things to ponder:1. I know, over an hour long...I don't have time for this?! Make time for it. The guy gave an amazing talk that will bring you to tears. He passed away last Friday, but his speech will live on forever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
2. Okay, much shorter, but just as good. Less than 10 minutes, could change your life with his lessons and humor. He also passed away, but as Uncle Todd knows, he changed college basketball and is a huge influence on many coaches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xsxUEG_1wg
3. I guess if you watched those other 2 videos, you are probably tired by now. Just search funny cats or something like that on youtube.com and enjoy whatever funny videos you can find.
