Day 52

A case of the Mondays.

I had grand plans for the day, however, the shitty weather kept us tied to the house.  I think we are getting a bit of cabin fever as a result.  The gray skies aren't showing any sign of lifting and it has a way of dampening the spirit.  There weren't any great accomplishments on this day, nor were there any great failures.  Monotony would be the name of the game.  I need a haircut and a shave.  The only outing for the day would be a much needed trip to the grocery store.  This was a successful mission even if it was a bit hectic due to the poor behavior of an unruly 3 year old. 

I did receive an interesting piece of information via social networking that I want to take a moment to rant about.  This little gem also put me in mind of another story that I will attempt to loop together in some sort of coherent fashion.  Yesterdays news was this . . . A friend and educator of the youth witnessed the following phone conversation in a highschool bathroom back in the states: "Oh my God, I totally can't be pregnant.  I'm only in 10th grade.  I mean,how stupid is that?  I don't know what I'm going to do (giggle) oh well, what are you wearing to prom?"  This is of course not an unusual conversation it seems and is a statement about todays youth.  Most would argue that it is a sad reminder of how little young women today respect themselves, but I would say it has less to do with the young women and more to do with the piss poor parenting they have received at home and from our society as a whole.  Let's be honest here, we can preach abstenance till we are blue in the face but the realities of the depraved human psyche make it an unreasonable endeavor to believe that our young people are not going to have sex.  It is a primal desire that is hard coded in our DNA and can't be combated by public service announcements and after school specials.  I am not arguing that we should stop preaching abstenance, but rather that we pair this with a sound education on contraceptive practices.

The truth of the matter is that this conversation has been carried on since we were all young.  Kids having kids is not a new concept.  What we need to do is educate our children.  We need to stop sticking our heads in the sand and treating sex in a conservative matter.  It's nothing to be ashamed of folks, it is after all how we all came into existence.  I don't know why it has become such a taboo in the US for it is not considered as such in the rest of the world.  There are vending machines for condoms stuck to building walls here in our fair city with as much frequency as an ATM machine.  In the States, you only find this in seedy truck stop bathrooms.  If our society and our parents spent more time communicating with our youth in a real way about sex and what it all means, we would start having fewer bathroom phone calls like the one detailed above.  Right or wrong, my 8 year old has already had an uncomfortable conversation with his father about the birds and the bees.  That's right, 8 years old.  I myself have witnessed conversations at his age that would make most parents' skin crawl.  Like it or not our society has changed and we better change our educational thought process along with it or we are going to be lost.

In a similar but perhaps more enlightened exchange a very close friend of mine shared this with me and I feel that it is worth passing along for in my mind it goes hand in hand with the conversation on education started above.  My friend was in a restaurant with his two young children.  He was working on a puzzle with them as they waited for mom to bring their food from the counter.  His interaction with his children caught the attention of a patron at the table next door.  This was an older gentleman wearing a sweatshirt that read "Harvard Dad".  Upon seeing the shirt, my friend asked the gentleman how he got his child into Harvard.  The following is a paraphrase of the conversation and response given:

He said, "I didn't get A child into Harvard, I put THREE children through Harvard and one through Stanford. All of them earned a bachelors then a masters there." My friend then made made a comment about how amazing that feat was at which point the jumped right into a soliloquy as though he'd rehearsed his philosophy for a performance on stage. He said:

There are four things you need to do. If you do these four things you will give them an unfair advantage, which is absolutely necessary if you want them to be anything more than average.

1. Set the expectations high. Start when they are young and expect greatness and success in everything they do. If you set the standard too low to something with guaranteed success then you will not challenge them and they will think success is simply meeting the low standard.

2. Teach them to ask, "why?" They need to continually question what they hear, see, and experience. It is what leads to true learning and knowledge... asking why. And more importantly when they ask, "why?" you must provide answers to the best of your ability and take the time to explain details. Kids absorb more than we think they can.

3. Travel all over the world. Give them a view of humanity that is much broader than their immediate surroundings. Don't just take them a few miles down the road to see something. Really get out there and share experiences. Get outside your city, your state, and even your country so they will know how big the world truly is.

4. Convince them they can do anything. As parents you WILL shape their view of themselves and what they can accomplish whether we choose to accept that role or not. Tell them they can be anything they want in life. No limits whatsoever. Don't just hear their dreams and goals, but be an active participant in the conversations by expanding whatever they are thinking to an even greater scope.

I could not have stated this better myself so I share it with you as it was shared with me.  This is my parenting philosophy and I have certainly achieved step #3 and would like to think I have a good start on the remaining three steps.  I tell my eldest with great frequency that there are a small number of people that are remembered forever.  Einstein, Aristotle and the Wright Brothers just to name a few.  I tell him that I too have left my mark and that while my name might not be mentioned in the same breath as these others, my contribution could be as great.  My contribution is  . . . HIM.  I tell him that he could save the world one day and I believe that with all my heart.  My children will know no limits and I will work my ass off to make certain that I can open what doors I can and assist them in breaking through those doors that I myself cannot open for them.  I have preached about this before, but I think it is worth a reminder course.  This is a philosophy not entirely my own and was passed down to me from my parents and  I can only hope that my children take the best of what I have given and in turn pass it on to their children.  It is all I have of value to give and hope that it serves them well.