“Never too late” is what many of you told me about the last editorial. Indeed it isn’t. It’s never too late to teach your children, nor to learn from them, nor to be a kid again.
Got some fabulous responses from you, including Mark Onuffer who said,
“I think the biggest thing my children have taught me is that you can have children today with their morals, thoughts, and direction in the right place. They have developed into an upstanding young man and woman, by making the right choices, using their minds and their common sense. I am very proud of them.”
Good to hear. If you watch much VHI, you’ll find that Mark’s first comment is a well-grounded concern!
Offering encouragement to those with children about to leave the nest, Deborah Strafuss said,
“Communication happens across many miles, without words. Stay connected, stay open, be accepting, always be who you are – they will always come back to connect and check in.”
Great advice. And with any luck, they’ll remember where to send the checks.
Yet, in a response mostly likely to cause a grown man to well a tear, came this…
As I leafed through dozens of kind responses, I came across this one. Stopped me cold, which turned into warmth. You’ll see.
“I learned from my son it is okay to be different. When he was 3 months old, he had a brain tumor removed that was about the size of an orange.
I was still in the Navy and the doctors said Ernie would never be this, and would never be that. They said he’d ‘always be dependent on someone else, that he’d always need someone to take care of him.’
He had it tough. Other kids picked on him. And all those things a father wants to teach their sons… to throw a ball, shoot some hoops and pass along what my father did for me, such as working with my hands. I could not do those things.
Yet I will say, the doctors were wrong on a couple points.
He is now 36 with children, working on his 2nd or 3rd Masters and working full time. He can look at a column of numbers and add them in his head faster than I can on a calculator. He may not walk or see well, but he has a good life and is happy.
He lives away now. He is independent. We talk often, but it is never enough. I first heard the song “Cats in the Cradle” bringing Ernie home from the hospital.
What a blessing it has been to have this gentle soul in our lives.
As fathers never really let go; but we must. I feel your pain and pride Adams; every day.”
Thank you, Dean Soliday for sending that message to all of us. I feel I’ve already unwrapped my present.
And lastly, it sounds like Kurt Wessling’s daughter may have the key to life when he wrote...
”My nine year old daughter is teaching me to relax. Not everything is so important. We we will get through the ‘stress’ in our life. Her advice to me is good: ‘Smile every day!"
When I think of children and Christmas, it brings a smile. For some, that smile changes from one based on the giddiness of an old man with a fantastic story named Santa, to the godliness of a young baby with an even more fantastic story named Jesus. Gifts from both, no matter your belief.
And part of our gift to you is to ask you to give something away, today. Give thanks to someone who’s not expecting it. Give encouragement to someone who needs it. Give time to listen to someone who feels they’ve run out of listeners.
Wherever you are, its’ never too late. Merry Christmas.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
School’s Never Out for the Learner
This can’t be right. My son is not really going off to college next year. Heck, it was only a year or so ago I was coaching him in baseball, when “winning” a game meant less than the snow cone that followed. For the record, I stopped coaching when the 9 year-olds had better strategy than I did.
Nope, he can’t be going off to college. Because it was only a few months back that I drove he and a friend to a dance, filled with anticipation and anxiety about actual dancing, or perchance a kiss. Giddy expectation, largely unspoken, filled the car.
Men – though deemed to have the emotional capacity of cauliflower – can sense these things. We just don’t talk it to death.
Surely, we’re not selecting colleges for my boy. Not the one for whom I was just shopping for the used truck that’s been in our driveway now for 2 years.
Fathers know, but find it hard to swallow. Those who work at working, selected to slay the dragon of financial stability and craft creation know: the time comes too quickly. We were even repeatedly warned, “the time will come too quickly.”
But as with our universal inability to ask directions when clearly lost, we admit and accept not. Our inner pioneer is either comparatively blind or comparatively naïve, “It’ll be different; We’ll figure it out. I’ve got time.” It kind of was; we sort of did; time is up.
Now, with swelled pride I watch this accomplished high school senior weave through the college maze. Yet I also hear faint strains of Cats in the Cradle in the background. A man knows.
Here’s hoping he becomes famously wealthy in record time so he can support me and my eternally-patient wife in a lifestyle to which he’s become accustomed.
Click for: 3 Lessons My Children Taught Me, 2 Lessons I hope I taught them, and 1 We All Keep Re-Learning
3 Lessons My Children Taught Me
1. “This isn’t your childhood; you already had yours.” We have all seen other parents “living vicariously” through their kids, which – to me – is a nice way of saying, “Hey, I was a loser, so I’m going to FORCE you to correct my mistakes!” This of course, renders them a bigger loser. Will they ever learn? I once found myself attempting to create a museum-quality display “with” my son for a 5th grade project. I reeled back, seeing my own horrifically ill-designed volcanoes, and decided: it’s his grade, not mine. Thankfully, this extracted me from all future projects, except for the semi-regular mad dash to Hobby Lobby 7 seconds before they closed because the project was “just remembered”.
2. “The degree to which you object now is likely the identical degree to which your parents objected then. So how’d that work out?” Oh shut up. Next question please.
3. It is possible to learn new levels of love, understanding, and patience. Gandhi would be proud. When you’re young, you love your mother, and probably your dog. Then you love your spouse. And you think that’s it. Then your children come along, and a whole new wave of capacity appears. If you’re really fortunate, you recognize that God loved you enough for any of this to happen in the first place.
2 Lessons I Hope I Taught Them
1. It’s good to experiment. No, not with drugs or seeing if pregnancy will REALLY happen, but combine things that are not often combined. The “norm” really isn’t. Poke at an old problem with a new solution; who says you “shouldn’t” wear a t-shirt under a short-sleeved shirt? Try the oysters for crying out loud (my son once tasted dog food, of his own volition, when we were actually cooking steak that same night). Kids are going to experiment. I say let ‘em. Better with clothes and hairstyles than with car keys and alcohol.
2. Persuasion, Influence, and Decisions form your life. Maybe you should learn how to direct them, instead of being directed by them. This is a gray matter subject at best. I hope my children know what is trying to get “sold” to them and more importantly, how. Further, strong stands are often for movie heroes only, so I hope they understand that deftly-guided influence works as well, at a lower blood pressure.
1 Lesson We All Keep Relearning
1. Other people are really strange. Good thing we’re perfectly normal.
Yes, my son really is going to college. He’s naturally smart, handsome, comes from unflawed genetics, all that. So if you head the endowment at a high-caliber college where scholarship money flows onto the manicured grounds, send a link to your application. I’ll get back with you, soon as I face the fact that this is really happening.
Your Turn:
What Lessons Did Your Children Teach You?
Do any of your children work with you? What lessons are YOU learning from that?
Nope, he can’t be going off to college. Because it was only a few months back that I drove he and a friend to a dance, filled with anticipation and anxiety about actual dancing, or perchance a kiss. Giddy expectation, largely unspoken, filled the car.
Men – though deemed to have the emotional capacity of cauliflower – can sense these things. We just don’t talk it to death.
Surely, we’re not selecting colleges for my boy. Not the one for whom I was just shopping for the used truck that’s been in our driveway now for 2 years.
Fathers know, but find it hard to swallow. Those who work at working, selected to slay the dragon of financial stability and craft creation know: the time comes too quickly. We were even repeatedly warned, “the time will come too quickly.”
But as with our universal inability to ask directions when clearly lost, we admit and accept not. Our inner pioneer is either comparatively blind or comparatively naïve, “It’ll be different; We’ll figure it out. I’ve got time.” It kind of was; we sort of did; time is up.
Now, with swelled pride I watch this accomplished high school senior weave through the college maze. Yet I also hear faint strains of Cats in the Cradle in the background. A man knows.
Here’s hoping he becomes famously wealthy in record time so he can support me and my eternally-patient wife in a lifestyle to which he’s become accustomed.
Click for: 3 Lessons My Children Taught Me, 2 Lessons I hope I taught them, and 1 We All Keep Re-Learning
3 Lessons My Children Taught Me
1. “This isn’t your childhood; you already had yours.” We have all seen other parents “living vicariously” through their kids, which – to me – is a nice way of saying, “Hey, I was a loser, so I’m going to FORCE you to correct my mistakes!” This of course, renders them a bigger loser. Will they ever learn? I once found myself attempting to create a museum-quality display “with” my son for a 5th grade project. I reeled back, seeing my own horrifically ill-designed volcanoes, and decided: it’s his grade, not mine. Thankfully, this extracted me from all future projects, except for the semi-regular mad dash to Hobby Lobby 7 seconds before they closed because the project was “just remembered”.
2. “The degree to which you object now is likely the identical degree to which your parents objected then. So how’d that work out?” Oh shut up. Next question please.
3. It is possible to learn new levels of love, understanding, and patience. Gandhi would be proud. When you’re young, you love your mother, and probably your dog. Then you love your spouse. And you think that’s it. Then your children come along, and a whole new wave of capacity appears. If you’re really fortunate, you recognize that God loved you enough for any of this to happen in the first place.
2 Lessons I Hope I Taught Them
1. It’s good to experiment. No, not with drugs or seeing if pregnancy will REALLY happen, but combine things that are not often combined. The “norm” really isn’t. Poke at an old problem with a new solution; who says you “shouldn’t” wear a t-shirt under a short-sleeved shirt? Try the oysters for crying out loud (my son once tasted dog food, of his own volition, when we were actually cooking steak that same night). Kids are going to experiment. I say let ‘em. Better with clothes and hairstyles than with car keys and alcohol.
2. Persuasion, Influence, and Decisions form your life. Maybe you should learn how to direct them, instead of being directed by them. This is a gray matter subject at best. I hope my children know what is trying to get “sold” to them and more importantly, how. Further, strong stands are often for movie heroes only, so I hope they understand that deftly-guided influence works as well, at a lower blood pressure.
1 Lesson We All Keep Relearning
1. Other people are really strange. Good thing we’re perfectly normal.
Yes, my son really is going to college. He’s naturally smart, handsome, comes from unflawed genetics, all that. So if you head the endowment at a high-caliber college where scholarship money flows onto the manicured grounds, send a link to your application. I’ll get back with you, soon as I face the fact that this is really happening.
Your Turn:
What Lessons Did Your Children Teach You?
Do any of your children work with you? What lessons are YOU learning from that?
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