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There are lots of common things that cause children to experience stress. On the surface most of us realize stress is caused by things like family, jobs, friends, or school. However, there are four things that may on the surface appear invisible but cause our children a great degree of stress.

Materialism – Children are just like adults. Just as most adults often feel compelled to keep up with the Joneses, children feel the same need. Our children want to keep up with Mr. & Mrs. Jones’ children.

Adults have become Madison Avenue’s puppets and children are Madison Avenue’s miniature puppets. From the perceived need to dress like Kim Kardashian to incorrectly believing that they must have the most current edition of LeBron James shoes, many children are unknowingly setting themselves up to become victims of the dreaded materialism panic attack. Often times having learned this behavior from their parents, children are mistakenly being led to believe that what one wears on the outside is a critical indicator about one’s internal value.

Attainment – Children are anxious about being a success. America after all is the land of opportunity and opportunity is supposed to breed success for any and all who live here. Right?

Being successful in America has almost become exclusively synonymous with the ability to drive the latest model luxury car, living in a palatial estate, rubbing elbows daily with the rich and famous, wearing only designer clothes and eating and drinking only the highest quality foods and spirits. These images of material possession bombard our children so much that many begin to feel like success is a birth right. The unwritten motto becomes “I live in America so I should have nothing but success”.

Most adults know that this motto is flawed realizing that opportunity and results are not a guarantee. Moreover, most parents realize that unlike the beliefs our children have we are not entitled to anything. However, the anxiety builds in our children as images of perceived success are displayed everywhere. Regrettably, there are few signs and images that display for our children that anyone can have success but that success rarely if ever occurs without hard work. Hard work that is most commonly associated with great personal sacrifice, blood, sweat, tears, time and a little bit of luck.

Impatience – We live in a microwave society. As such everything that doesn’t happen immediately is like cooking food in a slow cooker. It takes too long. Don’t believe me. Ask a hungry child to wait for you to cook dinner and see how they respond. Wait to eat are you kidding? Where is the nearest fast food restaurant?

Our children are stressed because they do not know what it means to be patient. They do not understand that life is more like a marathon than a sprint. They don’t realize that life is more like preparing food in a slow cooker than it is putting something in the microwave. They don’t understand that whatever goals or objectives they may have are only going to manifest themselves through a well-defined process.

Perhaps as their parents, we need to introduce them to the types of processes we use at work like S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. Maybe if our children knew S.M.A.R.T. they would no longer fail to understand if it (accomplishments and success) was quick and easy like microwave and fast food everyone would be at the same place and they would feel exactly the way they feel now…not special, not exceptional, not accomplished, simply the same as everyone else.

Lack of Direction – This fourth stressor might be the most obscure of all the stressors. While it is true that children have a formalized K-12 educational system, children are being taught more about the facts necessary to pass a test than how to think so that they can advance themselves and society. Our rote learning methodology is robbing children of their natural inquisitive disposition and eliminating the kind of creativeness required to advance our society.

Society has always progressed when people knew how and were not afraid to dream. Dreaming is brought to life when we are allowed to be inquisitive and creative. Individually and collectively, we have our greatest personal growth and historical societal gains when inquisitiveness and creativeness are truly valued and supremely nurtured.

Our children know how to want things, know how to be fixated on stuff and some but not nearly enough even know how to pass tests. What they don’t know and what they have little direction about is how to dream – dreaming about how to make their childhood aspirations a reality and about ways to make the world a better place than it was when they arrived.

We have done an insufficient job of teaching and cultivating their inquisitiveness and creativity to such an extent that when our children are confronted with one roadblock or one pitfall many of our children are ready to quit. Our children need direction that shows them how to navigate around, over, under, or through road blocks and pitfalls and training that reminds them that impossible is nothing!

 

Have you done your best to eliminate the invisible stressors from your child’s life?

On a daily basis something is said, written or televised about children and stress. Whenever a child misbehaves at home or school or does something bizarre like engage in violent or criminal behavior, society’s initial response is to examine what type of stressors existed in the child’s life. The ensuing assumption is that the child must have some alphabet soup chemical, mental or emotional imbalance (ADD, ADHD, ASPD, BPD, OCD, PTSD etc.) that can only be “cured” by Big Pharma; someone must have been bullying the child at school; or the child must be the victim of some horrific cruelty at home.

On too many occasions – by the way with one of these incidents alone being too many – these are accurate reasons for childhood stress. However, more often than not these are not alone the factors that raise the stress levels of our children.

Star Trek Into Darkness

At other times when a child’s behavior is unsettling, it is suggested that children are more stressed today than ever because they happen to be growing up in the age of Wi-Fi, the Cloud and smart phones. The assertion is that the world is so advanced and complicated that children are having a hard time adjusting.

Today’s children are just like every other previous generation of children. Each generation has always functioned like the crew of the USS Enterprise – to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Today’s children are not prehistoric humans only recently thawed out from a great freeze who are suddenly being asked to coexist in a 21st century world. Today’s children are evolutionary marvels who are more technological advanced than any generation in the history of the world.

Children today have the mental and emotional capacity to do great and amazing things, things that other generations could not have ever imagined. So what appears on the surface to be a rational justification for stressed children – “the world is just so different” - is in the words of Mr. Spock “highly illogical”.

Gone Are Typewriters, Dial-up Internet and Film Cameras

Speaking of logic, I will grant you that the world is different than it was when I was a child but I am different as well. My parents use to drive me around in a car without anti-lock brakes, seat belts (lap belts existed when I was a child), a car seat or air bags. Today, if I did any of these things I would be considered a horrible parent and might even be ticketed and/or worse arrested for child endangerment. I believe scientist would define this as advancement in automobile safety as progress, evolution.

And while technological progress has certainly made the world different from when I was a child, the world is in many ways still the same world it has always been. The world, a place where succeeding generations advance society in ways preceding generations never considered. Advancing civilization has always been and will always be the name of the game.

Ooh ooh ooh, I Know The Answer

Now that you know what is not the primary cause of stressed children, I suppose I should enlighten you about what is the actual cause. Drum roll please! The real culprit for the increased stress levels of children are parents. Parenting – the unrecognized, unappreciated profession of child-rearing.

Today’s children lack impactful, purposeful and intentional parenting. More and more, parenting has become the responsibility of everyone but – let’s see if you have been paying attention – you guessed it, the parents! Instead of studying, training and continuing to educate ourselves on the art of being parents, far too many mothers and fathers spend the majority of their time and energy devoted to anything but perfecting the “art of parenting”. In the case of our profession, we inaccurately believe that our first and most important occupation is performed at our place of employment rather than at home nurturing the life that we created.

Not Just Any Villager

I know it is common to espouse the expression that it takes a village to raise a child but our understanding of this phrase is only partially correct. Truthfully, it takes a village of impactful, purposeful, intentional, knowledgeable, thoughtful parenting savants to help raise today’s children. And for the record, seeking the assistance of the village idiot (click the hyperlink) will not only not never do but it is not in the spirit of the expression.

Teachers, coaches, school counselors, social service employees, therapist, pharmaceutical representatives, etc. are now all being asked to do what parents once did and should be doing. If asking others to do what we should be doing ourselves is not bad enough, we are expecting people who are frequently unqualified and/or lack the competency (click the hyperlink) to raise their own children adequately to take on the additional responsibility of parenting our children.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

The pressure kids face regardless of the sophistication of society or the complexity of the issues are – as a wise man once told me – always about making choices. Choosing good over bad, choosing right over wrong, choosing life over death are issues every preceding generation had to deal with and are issues every succeeding generation will have to deal with. Ethical issues, just like parents, have existed since the beginning of time and they will continue to exist until the end of time. Shamefully, the end of time could arrive sooner than we think if we don’t solve our parenting problem.

The question we must ask ourselves today is whether we will continue to put our children in harm’s way and endanger the future of the planet as we are currently doing or are we going to take parenting seriously. Mr. Spock would likely tell us that the logical response would be to study, train and continue to educate ourselves on parenting. Mr. Spock would almost certainly express that there is a great probability of a less than promising future if we don’t immediately improve as parents.

I don’t know about you but I don’t need or want to wait for Mr. Spock to tell me that a world combined with the proliferation of poor parenting, technological advancements and nuclear armaments is a recipe not solely guaranteed to increase the stress levels in our children but a formula to cause far greater peril than the crew of the USS Enterprise has ever seen. In the words of Mr. Spock, not to become better parents so that we can reduce the stress in our children’s lives is “highly illogical”.

 

What are you doing to become a better parent?

In our last post, I mentioned that I was going to list some of the many things that I earned from my living mother and my deceased maternal grandmother. Directives that I mentioned I want my son not only to live out but to share through words or deeds with any and all that he meets. So without further ado, here is the list of ten things my mom taught me to do when I raised my own child.

  1. Put Your Children First – My mother taught me that the well-being of her children came before anything or anyone else. It didn’t matter if it was buying us school clothes when she could have used new clothes of her own, giving us lunch money while she took a bag lunch to work, sending care packages in college when she needed compassion at home…my mom sacrificed constantly. Too often she indebted herself so that my sister and I could experience a rich and full childhood. I learned that when it comes to loving your child sacrifice is nothing and it’s everything.
  2. Give a Full Day’s Work – My mother rarely if ever missed a day at work. She continues to take the same approach to her job today. Always on time, hardly ever taking an unscheduled day off is her mantra. My mom showed me that giving 100% to the work that you do is an extension and expression of the love you have for your children. For my mom, No job meant no provisions for her children and her response to that has and always will be No Way.
  3. Love Other People’s Children Like You Love Your Own – My mother was the neighborhood mom. Many of my friends and my sister’s friends to this day continue to call my mother mom. I don’t ever remember a time when my mother was not gracious and accommodating to each and every child who entered our home. Her willingness to treat all our friends the same as my sister and me was evidenced that she understood what “leaving no child behind” really meant. Her outward love was illustrated as she repeatedly fed everybody, provided a shoulder to other children to lean on, offered wise counsel when other children lacked direction and once even taught a friend and I how to slow dance so that we wouldn’t make a fool of ourselves at a middle school dance. My sister and I knew we were loved by our mom and our friends experienced that same love.
  4. Be a Great Friend – My mother has had the same friends for as long as I can remember. When I say friends I mean friends not acquaintances, not work colleagues…good ole fashioned F-R-I-E-N-D-S. Maxine, Margo, Evelyn, Mary, Gerri, Janet and Odessa. In a day when people call themselves friends simply because they have accepted a friend request on Facebook, my mother continues to have face time, real-time interaction with those who she loves, trusts and respects. At least once a month, she and her friends find time to commune with each other. I have learned from my mom that friends stay with you through thick and thin for a lifetime.
  5. Be Grateful For What You Have – We didn’t have a lot when we were growing up but I never really knew that I was missing anything. My mom always made it a point to remind me that I should always be appreciative for whatever I had. I was reminded that whatever I had was better than what someone else had. Knowing this, how could I possibly complain knowing someone else was worse off than I thought I was? Recognizing that things could be worse than you already have it is a great way to inspire a child to be thankful for what they have. Unlikely will you ever meet the child who says I want to trade places with someone who is worse off than me.
  6. Make Sure Your Child Knows That They Are Special – My mom use to make me feel special all the time that is until her grandson was born. Now, not so much! Seriously, my mom did her best to make sure that my sister and I had the best opportunities to succeed. My sister and I knew that we were special because there were no limits to which mom would go to help us and make sure we knew that we were loved. While in college – when young men like to act like they no longer need their mother’s – my friends congregated in my room each semester with their hands out and their mouths open wide waiting to enjoy some of the baked goods my mom would send in my care packages. It was obvious that I was special and my friends knew it t0o. They weren’t salivating over the cookies and cakes my mom sent me for nothing.
  7. Don’t Let Others Know If Things Are Bad – I call this the “Endure Hardness as a Good Soldier” rule. My mom’s life had its unfortunate share of tumultuous moments but if you were on the outside looking in you never would have known. She taught me not to be a person who seeks the pity or sympathy of others. She continues to endure life’s challenges with the hardness of a great warrior. I continue to marvel and learn that the human condition can withstand more than you would think. My mom has taught me that things seem less frightening once you stop spending your time obsessing about your challenges and instead focus on a solution. A solution that often times includes focusing on how you can be a comfort for someone else. Remember there is always someone worse off than you.
  8. Honor Your Mother and Father – My mother showed great reverence and was devoutly loyal to her parents. Although they are no longer living, my mother continues to revere and honor them each and every day as she steadily lives her life the way she was taught. I have learned from my mother that honoring parents is not a single event or a single act. Honoring one’s parents is a lifestyle that extends far beyond the presence of the parents. My mother has instructed me that whatever you do, you do not just for yourself you do to and/or for your parents.
  9. Forgive – This is a commandment that I have not been able to master with same grace as my mom. My mom has always been quick to forgive. I can’t remember a time as a child when she did not forgive me for some reprehensible action. I can’t remember a time when she withheld telling me that she loved me or hugging me to know that I was forgiven. I learned from my mom that while it was appropriate to tell your child that you were disappointed it was not appropriate to deny your child your forgiveness or your love.
  10. I’m Sorry – This is another commandment that I need to work on if I am ever going to master it the way my mother has. My mother is able to do what seems simple but is highly uncommon. My mom is able to admit to making an error and then apologizing. As a child, I knew many parents who refused to admit to making any mistakes. Far too many parents believe the word “parent” is synonymous with perfect. Parent, as I learned from my mom meant striving for perfection but being perfectly willing to admit and say I’m sorry when I fail.

Thanks mom for everything. I would be absolutely lost without your love, friendship and guidance. Know that I will do my best to keep your commandments just as you attempt to keep those your mother established for you to follow. I have a feeling though that mastering your directives are going to take me a bit more time. Nevertheless, no matter how challenging honoring the commandments may be, I’m going to do my best. Giving my best is the least that I can do to show you – not simply on Mother’$ Day but every day – how much I love and appreciate you.

This Sunday, Americans will celebrate Mother’$ Day. Sadly, just another “American Holiday” that like many other “American Holidays” has been commercialized beyond recognition.

Most of us, if we haven’t done so already will run out to our nearest shopping center or get on our computers to make some last-minute purchases. Oops, did I step on your toes? Crunch, crunch! Shame on me! Uh not really! Whether we buy flowers, candy, cards, clothing, electronics and/or take mom to dinner, the vast majority of us have in the words of Denzel Washington’s 1992 portrayal of Malcolm X “been had, been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amuck” into believing that spending money, massive amounts of money in actuality, is required to honor our mothers.

In fact, the original intent of Mother’s Day has been so bastardized (no pun intended) that a significant number of us mistakenly believe that the amount of money spent on “stuff” quantifies the depth of our love and appreciation of our mothers. I hate to tell you this folks but that type of thinking is straight up Horse “’S’ to the ‘H’ to the ‘I’ to the ‘T’” or in politically correct terminology just wrong.

This concept of Mother’$ Day is so flawed. Ruined just like all our other societal attempts to measure love with money…Wedding$, Chri$tma$ and Valentine’$ Day included. Just so you know money can be an outward token of love but money should never be compared or equated with love. Or like the Beatles once sung money “Can’t Buy Me Love“.

Mother’s Day Origin

So you celebrate Mother’$ Day but do you know why you do it? Now, I’m all for the spirit of cooperation but you need to ask yourself what’s with this going along just to get along nonsense. Are you attempting to make the late Rodney King proud of you? Maybe Mother’$ day is just something else you do because – well like you uttered as a child – “everyone else does it”?

Consider this though, if you do buy “stuff” because it is a date on the calendar, aren’t you actually sullying your mom’s good name? Didn’t your mom tell you not to be a follower, not to do stuff just because everyone else does it, to know what you are getting yourself into and to use your own mind?

I know my mom told me those things and I bet your mom told you something similar. I also have a sneaky suspicion that if you are doing things your mom warned against, she would not be too happy with you right now. For now, I’ll keep your behavior a secret but if you don’t get it together soon, I’m going to have to tell your mommy on you.

FYI, the creation of Mother’s Day was intended with one purpose only. Whether it was the ancient Greek civilization’s celebration of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods; Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom; Julia Ward Howe organizing annual Mother’s Day celebrations throughout Boston in the 1870s; Juliet Calhoun Blakely’s celebration of Mother’s Day in Albion, Michigan, in the late 1800s; or Anna Jarvis holding a private Mother’s Day celebration in memory of her mother in the early 20th century in Grafton, West Virginia…the aim of Mother’s Day is clear. Mother’s Day exists simply to remind and encourage children to praise and honor their mothers.

America the Capitalistic, Oops I Meant Christian Nation

It is often argued that America is a Christian nation so if any people should know what honor means it is the people of this country, right? I have my doubts about that affirmation but I will save that for another day and time. However, assuming that this religious declaration is correct then Americans should be able to reference the Bible for its guidance on Mother’s Day.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be a religious scholar or flip through the pages of the Bible very long to find out what is expected when honoring mothers. The Fifth Commandment of the Bible which turns out to be more than just another directive or moral imperative, commands not only that we honor our mother and father but promises that if we do so our days will be long. The law calls this quid pro quo or “this for that”. In simple terms, if you honor your mother your life – in the words of the LG commercial – will be good.

Religious beliefs aside, it undoubtedly makes good sense that honoring those who gave you life would be good for you. However, what must not be understated or lost in religious declaration is that this moral imperative – which on the surface appears to only be about you, the individual – is really about we, society at large. The more we honor our parents, the better society will be. Let me say that one more time for the people in the cheap seats “the better we are as individuals the better society will be collectively”.

Practicing Honor

Honoring our mother’s is about respecting their teachings, following their rules, modeling our conduct based off their behavior and obeying their instructions. Honoring our mothers is not about spending $20.7 billion as a nation. Honoring our mothers is not about an average per person spending of $168.94 per mother on “stuff” which mostly we cannot afford and that will soon be forgotten, will rust or be eaten by moths.

Honoring our mother’s requires first that we have noble and admirable mothers. Second, those of us who are fortuitous enough to have been raised by noble and admirable mothers have the ethical obligation – not simply on a commercialized holiday but each and every day – to praise and honor our mothers.

I’m Just Saying

So this Sunday save your money. Recognize that Mother’s day is every day not only the second Sunday in May. Don’t participate in Mother’$ day instead compliment your mother. Find a way to let your actions and interactions bring to life those exemplary lessons and principled instructions that your mother provided.

If your mother is living, consider doing any of the following:

  • Write her a letter, a poem, record a song, a YouTube video, paint her a picture, start a blog, write a blog entry or something else created by you and you alone that she can keep and reference anytime she desires.
    • Share something from her that you believe the world would be enhanced by knowing.
    • Tell her in whatever personalized form you choose something that you would want her to know if you learned that today would be your final chance to speak to her. Because as all of those whose mothers have passed would attest, today could be your last chance.

If your mother is unfortunately no longer living, consider doing something that might have put a smile on her face:

  • Write her a letter, a poem, record a song, a YouTube video, paint her a picture, start a blog, write a blog entry or something else created by you and you alone that you wish she knew and/or that you wish you had said more often.
    • Share something from her that you believe the world would be enhanced by knowing.
    • Write your children a letter telling them how much and why you love them.
    • Write your own family ten commandments. An instructional list composed of all the things that you learned from your mother that you believe should be mandates of your family. Directions that will allow any and all who share your mother’s DNA to carry on the family’s legacy with the same dignity and integrity that she did.

On Sunday, I will be putting my own advice into action. I’m going to prepare a list of commandments that I believe every parent should adhere to that I learned from my living mother and my deceased maternal grandmother. Directives that I want my son not only to live out but to share through words or deeds with any and all that he meets. That’s going to be the way I honor my mom this Mother’s Day. What about you?

 

Is Mother’s Day to commercialized or am I just a Grinch? What’s your most memorable Mother’s Day?

If you remember our post where I introduced you to the Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice, I mentioned that there was a second infamous factor at play that caused your otherwise saintly children to behave in ways that are – to be polite – obnoxious and unquestionably contrary to your verbalized instructions and expectations. That second factor is known as the Law of Second Hand Smoke.

Secondhand Smoke

I’m almost certain that when you hear or read the words Second Hand Smoke, the first thing that comes to mind, is the smoke that comes from a burning cigarette. Well as toxic and life threatening that this form of secondhand smoke is there is another form that you might unknowingly be exposing your child to that is no less dangerous.

Before I introduce you to this new form of Secondhand Smoke, let me take a moment to remind you about the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) description of Secondhand Smoke. According to the ACS, Secondhand smoke is a mixture of 2 forms of smoke that come from burning tobacco:

  1. Mainstream smoke – the smoke exhaled by a smoker
  2. Side stream smoke – smoke from the lighted end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar

Mainstream Smoke

At first puff, most of us, particularly those of us who don’t smoke, would assume incorrectly that Mainstream smoke is the most toxic form of Secondhand Smoke. In truth, Side stream smoke has the higher concentration of carcinogens. Perhaps this explains why not only do I not ever want to smoke but I loathe standing anywhere near a smoker.

If you are not a smoker, you have come to appreciate that no matter how you try to hold your breath, how you try to air out your clothes or how quickly you take a shower when exposed to a smoker, none of those efforts are preventative. Not only will you have been victimized by the scent of smoke but worse you will have already been unsuspectingly polluted. From the moment the smoker lights up to the time they have had their last drag, if you are anywhere nearby, your lungs and body suffer more than the person puffing away on the cancer stick.

As I am going to detail, our relationships with our children and the world that our children live in is similar to being exposed to Side Stream Secondhand Smoke.

Ahh Fresh Air!

As parents we would all like to think and believe that our children are only inhaling and exhaling all of our good parenting’s pure 100% pollutant free freshly ventilated “stay on the straight and narrow” clean air. Lamentably, from time to time, we learn that our little angels inhale less of our “clean air” and more of society’s polluted second-hand smoke-filled air.

During those times when our children are confronted with Secondhand Smoke exposure, we would like nothing more than to believe that all the time that we spent talking to them has some pollutant repelling “air freshener” effect. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t. While our spoken interactions should have the greatest significance on our children’s lives, what we articulate to them is no sure-fire guarantee that they won’t suffer the ill and often times life threatening effects of Side Stream Secondhand Smoke.

For the record, Side Stream Secondhand smoke are all the undesirable opinions, unwelcome perspectives, objectionable thoughts and distasteful behaviors from the outside world and sometimes from inside of your own home that affect the lives of our children. While this form of secondhand smoke is oft-times disguised you will recognize it as ALL the ways of thinking and living that you preach as being diametrically opposite to what is good for your child. Side Stream Secondhand smoke from your home is simply EVERYTHING opposite to those expectations you proclaim to have for your children.

Smoking Room

Imagine for a moment the last time that you walked through an airport. While walking through the airport you probably noticed a room labeled “Smoker’s Lounge” or “Smoker’s Room”. Now if you are not a smoker you will undoubtedly never enter this room. However, the next time you see this room do yourself a favor and pay close attention. This room is symbolic of what it is like each and every day when we send our children out into the world. Without recognizing what we are doing, we knowingly and willingly send our children out into the “Smoker’s Room”.

Like the carcinogens that engulf the lungs of the smokers, our children share spaces and enter rooms with people who breathe poison onto and into them. Sometimes the exposure is so vicious that our children’s lives take on the appearance of the last person who enters an already crowded and smoke satiated smoking room. The person we knew as our child disappears overwhelmed and consumed in total by the poisonous heavy smoke of a cruel world.

Like the smoker entering the Smoker’s Room, the velocity and absorption of the contamination in our children’s lives is dependent on the number of smokers in the room. Far too often for our children, the speed and depth of the real world’s poisonous perversion is analogous to the unfortunate last smoker who enters the Smoking Room. The defilement of the smoker’s health and well-being is exacerbated not simply from the damage caused from Mainstream Smoke, smoking their own cigarette, but rather by the cumulative and exponential damage caused from the Secondhand Side Stream Smoke of all the other smokers in the room.

The Real World

You need to know that Side Stream Smoke feels almost imperceptible at first. Side Stream Smoke are those seemingly inconsequential conversations but more likely behaviors our children overhear and witness which on occasion involve us as well as those people who we would never want to parent them.

On an in-house level, Side Stream Smoke is transmitted the following ways. A reality TV show which we watch that our children on occasion come into our room, sit and watch with us. The dispassionate fashion (words and/or deeds) which we approach our relationship with our spouse or significant other. The disrespectful, sometime contemptuous manner that we conduct ourselves with the public. Our inability to stop working even after we have already worked a full day and come home later than promised. Texting while driving, exhibiting road rage and spending an entire car ride talking on the phone rather than talking to the people in the car with us are but a few of the examples of in-house Side Stream Secondhand Smoke that infect our children.

Side Stream Secondhand Smoke are also those incidents involving others outside our children’s home. Things which appear trivial on the surface but when observed constantly even in the smallest measures infiltrate our children’s most inner thoughts and minds. These are incidents were we are not present to witness first hand. An incident at school where a bully goes unpunished and the victim is chastised for being a baby. A school acquaintance who cheats at everything but never seems to suffer any negative consequences. The handsome son of wealthy parents who is the least respectful, talented and hardworking of all the children but is always the student promoted to a leadership role. The pretty girl at school who is constantly rewarded because of her looks even though her grades are anything but attractive. These are some of the examples of Side Stream Secondhand Smoke that infect our children when they are not in our presence.

Call the CDC

I hope you can see that this form of Secondhand Smoke is just as unhealthy for society as the traditional form. Let me tell you, if calling the CDC would eliminate this outbreak of Secondhand Smoke, I would have made the call a long time ago.

I’m sure that like you, I would love nothing more than for my son to be exactly the person that I have always envisioned that he would be 100% of the time. Like you, I would love nothing more than for my son to be forever free of exposure to and potential contamination from Secondhand Smoke. Like you, I would like to believe that I am a non-smoker and bear no responsibility for the exposure of Secondhand Smoke on my child or any other child/children through the infection of my own child. And like you, I would simply be lying.

Stop Lying

Turn on the news, read the paper (not a blog post of 500 words or less), listen to public radio and you will know that Secondhand Smoke is at epidemic levels. Until ADULT human beings become better at being human beings, beginning with and including me, our children, our nation and our world are going to continue to suffer the ill effects of Secondhand Smoke. As a human beings, until expressions like Good Samaritan become the standard for adult behavior and not an exception to be applauded and awarded, Secondhand Smoke will continue to overwhelm the lives of our children, eat away at the fabric of this nation and destroy this world.

Ask yourself, “did I breathe life into my child today or did I contaminate them yet again with Secondhand Smoke?”

Yesterday after having a not particularly great morning practice, I had a discussion with my only, yet favorite, son. Why would you care that I had a conversation with my son? Well you might care if you knew that the foundation of our conversation would be valuable to you individually and/or as a parent. So without further ado here is today’s post without the technical or tactical aspects of soccer.

Everything Will Be Alright In the End

If you have not seen the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I highly recommend that you rent it. In the movie there is a great quote that I often find myself citing or applying to some real life situation. The quote is “In India we have a saying, ‘Everything will be alright in the end’… so if it’s not alright, it is not yet the end.”

When Sonny, the hotel’s manager, first utters those words, he does so in an attempt to convince one of the dissatisfied guests to stay at the hotel. The guest was ready to leave because the hotel was – to put it mildly – nothing like the hotel advertised in the brochures.

Yesterday, when I spoke those words to my son, I did so not to convince him to stay in a dilapidated hotel but to remind him that his bad morning practice was just that one bad practice. One disappointing practice, one frustrating day, one mediocre week, one substandard month or one inferior year does not mean that when all is said and done his career will have been a disappointment.

Although he is just seventeen and part of a microwave, immediate gratification, society, I still try to prepare him to know and understand what far too many adults, including myself from time to time forget. Everything will be alright in the end…so if it’s not alright, it is not yet the end. My son needed to be reminded that until the end arrives, which as best as I know does not happen until we die – each and every one of us continues to have the time and the opportunity to make everything we consider unpleasant…alright.

During our conversation, in addition to providing him with the encouraging words from the visionary optimistic hotel manager, Sonny, I shared with him some words from the man who was once thought to have all the answers. I said “son relax, keep your head up because in the words of Allen “The Answer” Iverson, ‘we talking about practice man, not the game…practice’”.

I’m From Missouri…Well Not Really

Sometimes simply sharing a quote is not enough to change someone’s outlook. Often times, the person you are trying to encourage is, like my son, from Missouri. No my son is not actually from Missouri. His DNA suggests that he is from somewhere in Africa. Exactly where in Africa, I don’t know but that’s a discussion for another time.

Being from Missouri is an expression. You know Missouri, the Show Me State. Forget it! Let’s pretend that I never mentioned Missouri.

Dow 15,000

Ironically, there was something extraordinary occurring at the time of our conversation yesterday so I was able to use that historic event in addition to Sonny’s quote to attempt to lift my son’s spirits. I asked my son did he remember the dates October 9, 2007 or March 6, 2009. Of course, I knew he wouldn’t. Those dates held no significance to him but for me they are forever ingrained in my memory.

Many of you know that on Tuesday, October 9, 2007, The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) hit what was at that time in history a record high of 14,164.53. Americans in general were ecstatic. We were spending money as if there was an infinite supply (kind of like we use oil). We were investing our hard-earned dollars only in the “can’t miss” “too-big to fail” companies. Up until that fateful day, life for countless Americans was better than many of us could have ever imagined in our wildest dreams.

Eighteen short months later, on Friday, March 6, 2009 we awoke to the most frightening reality. The DJIA had lost 54% of its value and fallen to a low of 6,443.27. This was more than a bad morning practice. If America had been an athlete this would have been a career ending injury.

Americans were not watching a bad morning practice, we were witnessing the bottom fall out of the market. Americans were not feeling bad because our team had just lost a game, we were feeling absolutely hopeless like nothing could or would ever be alright. This was real misery.

Yet on Friday, May 3, 2013, while I was talking to my son, the DJIA surpassed 15,000 for the first time in history. Fifteen thousand! An unbelievable number given the wretched state of the market only a few years prior. From 6,443.27 to 15,000 in four short years. An increase of 8,556.73.

I didn’t ask my son if he agreed or understood what I was trying to convey. I just assumed that he understood that Sonny was correct. The market’s new record high and the fact that he was still living having just completed a bad morning “practice” were proof – “Everything will be alright in the end’… so if it’s not alright, it is not yet the end.”

What Comes Down Can Go Up

My son like so many of us is a hard one to convince. He understood what I was trying to convey but his disposition was unchanged. Still mopping, I shared with him a song I remembered from the early days of my life.

In 1969 the band Blood, Sweat & Tears recorded the song, “Spinning Wheel“. The song was a huge hit. It was number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and it received numerous Grammy Award nominations.

As I was talking to my son, it was as if “Spinning Wheel” – one of the few non R&B songs that crossed over during my youth – was the soundtrack to our conversation. Don’t be bashful feel free to Sing it with me:

  • What goes up must come down
  • Spinnin’ wheel got to go ’round
  • Talkin’ ’bout your troubles it’s a cryin’ sin
  • Ride a painted pony let the spinnin’ wheel spin

That felt good didn’t it. Nothing like singing one of those good ole songs from yesteryear. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the song, I will admit that at first glance the lyrics might read like words composed by some free love, drug using songwriter from the late 60s and early 70s. But trust me, the lyrics are so much more.

The “Spinning Wheel” lyrics were reinforcement that Sonny’s quote and the Dow’s new high were not aberrations. The lyrics were an additional reminder that we should remain optimistic even when things seem bleak. With the song as the soundtrack playing in my mind, I was able to share with my son through song – when things go down like the market, like the spinning wheel they eventually have to go back up. The song was correct, life is a spinning wheel which has to go round and round.

As I continued to share my perspective on the market, I related for him how there have been a lot of horrendous days in the growth and expansion of the market since March 6, 2009 to May 3, 2013. Likewise, his development as a soccer player and more importantly his growth as a man will have peaks and valleys similar to the Dow. The peaks and valleys are what Blood, Sweat & Tears wrote about – life’s tortuous spinning wheel – a part of life’s process that we all have to experience.

As a financial services professional for over twenty years, I told him that my experience has been that no matter how good things are going, the market will drop. When the market drops a rebound will follow. When there is a market high subsequent to that market high there will be a market correction. In other words, his experiences in the morning practice were not an unlucky exception. What Blood, Sweat & Tears wrote and sang is true for all of us “what goes up must come down, spinning wheel got to go round”.

IF

My son is truly a stubborn one. So, I shared with him one last thing. I shared the word IF. Not quite as insightful as Rudyard Kipling’s poem but something meaningful nonetheless. I told him that IF he can remember Sonny’s words, IF he remembers how the Dow climbed to 15,000 and IF he to a lesser extent he remembers Allen’s words about practice, he WILL have the life he desires. IF he can remember to keep his emotions even through the good and bad, he WILL have the life he desires. I assured him that my version of IF coupled with Mr. Kipling’s legendary poem would not only help him get through the afternoon practice but it would allow him to maintain a life-long renewed spirit.

Finally, I reminded him that people generally make the worse decisions, financial errors included when they do or don’t, buy or sell based on emotions. Don’t let any practice, any day, any game, any season or any moment in life now or in the future get you feeling too high or especially too low. If you have a bad play, a bad game or a bad day, remember a rebound is sure to follow and a new high is certain. If you have a good play, a good game or a good day, remember a correction is sure to follow. Never forget Life’s spinning wheel goes round and round and like all good wheels and the Dow they always manages to continue moving forward.

Are you functioning as if you believe it’s not the end? Or are you sitting around feeling sorry for yourself while you still have time and opportunity to change your situation?

Have you ever wondered how you could raise your children to do and believe in something only to find them doing and espousing something different? Have you ever told your child what you expected of them only to hear them rationalizing their behavior based on what their friends or what other parents allow their children to do? Has your child written you a legal brief supporting their behavior even though they have never set foot in law school? Has your child delivered to you what felt like the oral defense of their PhD Dissertation even though they have yet to receive a high school diploma?

Well, if your child is anything like you were as a child, the aforementioned has happened to you a time or two and will no doubt happen a few more times. If you have already experienced the above or even if the described situations have yet to happen, let me be the first to assure you that your time is coming.

In the words of my favorite uncle, “just keep living”. While I’m alerting you to the inevitable, let me take a moment to welcome you to the Wonderful World of Parenting. A world where you know very little about most things that is until your children have children of their own.

Father Knows Best?

The type of occurrences that I listed earlier are the types of incidences that might have given you pause. Privately or maybe openly you’ve wondered about your fitness as a parent. Perhaps you have pondered “What am I doing wrong?”, or “What am I missing?”

Chances are that you are probably not doing anything wrong. You most likely aren’t missing anything. And in all likelihood you’ve been doing an exceptional job as a parent. Relax! Take a deep breath. It’s not you at all. You aren’t crazy. It’s your child!

When you start to ask yourself questions about your capacity to parent and your decision-making appears to be on trial, there are dual factors at play. The initial factor is what I refer to as the Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice. I reference the succeeding factor as the Law of Second Hand Smoke. In this post, we are only going to review the Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice. We will examine the Law of Second Hand Smoke in our next post.

The Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice

The Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice is a rule that exists for one reason and one reason only. The Rule persists to make sure that every adult parent gets to consume a good heaping dose of the chronic disappointment, lingering heartache, prolonged disobedience and unrelenting headache you so generously and regularly bestowed upon your parents when you were a child. In other words, the Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice is the universe’s cruel yet fair way of teaching and reminding all those children who later become parents that payback is a large serving of Bee served with generous portion of itch – over and over and over again!

The Rule serves as a reminder, lest you try to forget that none of us walk on water, have ever walked on water nor will we ever walk on water. Further, The Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice is an extension to the Immutable Law of Reciprocity (more on that at another time).

Hopefully knowing this helps and convinces you that in spite of your child’s badgering and pessimistic opinion, you are not crazy. Take comfort realizing what I now recognize, what my parents understood and what my parent’s parents knew before me. Relax knowing that the same thing your “hard headed, know it all, dispute everything” child will likely come to know and understand unequivocally for themselves. “To err is human and to raise a child is to experience many of your childhood errors for the second, third, fourth, fifth… time.”

From Perfect Strangers to Long Lost Friend

Your parents most likely tried to introduce you to the Rule but you didn’t pay them any attention. So when you became a parent and are first introduced to the Rule it is like meeting a perfect stranger. Remember those words “wait until you have children.” Yes, those words. The words that you parents used as a way to introduce you to your future self. But you couldn’t conceive of a moment in the future when you would be anything like your parents. You couldn’t imagine that one day, you would raise a child who would think they are infallible, immortal, all-knowing…just plain perfect and you are well outmoded, unjust, skeptical…just too damn old and imperfect like your parents.

So the Rule helps us remember lest we forget that we were not always the perfect people we are today. Recently, the Rule helped me remember a time when my parents had an expectation of me that seemed trivial and an affront to my manly independence.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

When I was as old as seventeen, I can remember my parents still requiring with some rare exception that I be home when the street lights came on. Home, by the way, meant being in the front of my own home where my parents could look outside the door or window to see me. Home meant in close proximity where my parents need only call my name and I could reply instantaneously.

A seventeen year old being required to be home when it got dark seemed like a harsh and ridiculous request to me. I was a teenager for God’s sake. Everyone else could stay away from the house longer than me. Surely, the few strands of hair on my chest and face counted for something – a couple extra minutes or hours outside the house. My perspective was that I was a good student, I had never been in any trouble so that had to qualify me to be able to stay out later and do it away from the front of my home.

LIFE

On an occasion or two, I attempted to challenge my parent’s governance. My plea for an extended curfew was based either on my lofty opinion of myself or in extolling the virtues of my friend’s wiser more sensible, “better” parents. My parent’s retort to my petition was always the same – “since you want to debate, you can now come in a half-hour earlier” or “since you want to debate, you can go live with your friend’s parents”.

What I heard from my parent’s, most notably my father, might as well have been the same sentence Mississippi Judge F.M. Byrne decreed for Rayford Gibson and Claude Banks – LIFE! Back then I could have sworn that I was serving a life sentence with Ray and Claude at The Mississippi State Correctional Institution:

  • where you lose your freedom,
  • where you do hard time,
  • there is no escaping from here,
  • there is no recreation here,
  • there is no fun here

What I didn’t understand then but is crystal clear to me now is that I was far from a prisoner at the Mississippi State Correctional Institution. Moreover, thanks to the Rule I now appreciate fully just how much my parents loved me.

They weren’t being cruel, archaic or unfair. They were trying to protect me from the cruelties and experiences that no child should ever be subjected. They were being parents. They wanted to keep me in close proximity so that they could lessen the chance for me to make the kind of misstep that could land me in the Mississippi State Correctional Institution. They wanted see me grow up and not be a victim of someone who now resides in the Mississippi State Correctional Institution. They wanted me to have a chance live the kind of LIFE that I am living today.

A (Not So) Beautiful Mind

What my infallible, immortal, all-knowing…perfect juvenile mind could not conceive was that the directive to be home when the street lights came home was Fred Sanford code for “you big dummy”. My parents understood that in the U.S. the greater number of violent crimes, i.e. shootings and homicides, occurred at night after the street lights came on.

I grew up in a city that was hailed, more times that I care to admit, as one of the most dangerous places to live in the U.S. On several occasions, my hometown, the place where I wanted to be free to come and go as I pleased, was designated the U.S. murder capital.

One night, my father had personally experienced the unpleasant intentions of criminals in my city. My father’s near death experience and my parent’s overall knowledge of the world I lived in legitimized their desire to keep me close to home when it was dark. The closer I was to home, the less chance that I could be victimized by someone lurking in the dark.

At the time, I thought my parents were just being super strict and overprotective. I’m sure that’s just the way my seventeen year old son – who is living 6,000 miles away from home in a country that has four times the amount of crime as the U.S. – probably feels when I ask him to touch bases with me when he wakes up and before he goes to bed.

Old School Meets New School

What I have only recently realized is that asking my son to touch bases with me is my 2013 way of saying be home when the street lights come on. This request of my son is the only thing that I can currently do to make an effort to check on him the way my folks looked out the windows and door to check on me. My request is but a token way to do what my parent’s did for me – make sure that I was safe and avoid situations that might lessen my chance of living to my fullest potential.

Thirty years later, The Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice has resurfaced yet again to remind me that my parents were just being noble, thoughtful, responsible and compassionate. My parents only wanted me – like I want for my son – to have a chance to really experience a full life not just an abbreviated life. Quite frankly now that I have experienced being a parent, it is clear that my parent’s also had an ulterior motive to make sure that I lived long enough to be a parent. My parent’s didn’t want anything to happen to me before I got a chance to receive my full heaping serving of the Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice.

Does your child ever think your parenting is too rigid? Do you think your child could have survived growing up as a child in your home?

As I have hopefully convinced you this month, there are a number of things you can share with your child when you teach them how to cook. I learned most of those lessons before my 16th birthday. Sometimes the lessons I learned were intended but other times the lessons were happenstance.

Lucky Bread

One such case, where a lesson I learned was coincidental occurred at a time where my father decided he was going to make bread. One school day afternoon, my father came home with a plethora of bread mix and yeast packages. You would have thought that he was a professional bread maker. There were so many packs of bread mix and yeast stacked on the kitchen counter it was utterly ridiculous. I was almost certain that my father had purchased a bread factory somewhere and he was going to compete head to head with the makers of Wonder Bread.

Contrary to my entrepreneurial hopes for my father, the excess of bread mix and yeast were not purchased for economic reasons unless you consider spending money on stuff the family didn’t need or couldn’t afford fiscal responsibility. My father for some strange reason simply wanted to make bread. Apparently his need to make bread extended well beyond just making one loaf. On that afternoon, he made up his mind that he was going to make every type of bread known to mankind. Worse of all, my sister and I would have an up-close and personal, first-hand view.

We Were All Witnesses

What did my father know about making bread? Sure he could make salads, massage steaks and bake potatoes but those things were so very different from baking bread. Having a first row seat to what I expected to be a complete cooking catastrophe was not how I intended to spend my evening. Unfortunately, it was not like I had another choice.

Well whether I wanted to watch or not, my father insisted that my sister and I view his neophyte bread making adventure. So like two captives who were convinced that we would never have an opportunity to steal away on the Underground Railroad, we observed inattentively as my father attempted to make bread.

A Baking Mess

Talk about total and unmitigated disaster. I am not exaggerating either when I tell you that none of the loaves – zip, nada, none, zero – turned out as he had intended or looked remotely similar to the bread displayed on the packages.

Most of the loaves failed to rise. They looked and felt like bricks when they came out of the oven. Other loaves were fully baked on the outside and uncooked and doughy on the inside. Still other loaves tasted like anything other than what they were supposed to taste like. It was a fiasco. Up until that moment in my life, watching imperfect loaf after each defective loaf come out of the oven was the funniest debacle that I had ever seen.

The man who always wanted an audience to observe his “fantastic” kitchen feats and listen to him pontificate about how talented he was had just suffered not one humiliation but multiple humiliations. In the infamous words of LeBron James, “not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven…loafs of bread were ruined.

I have no doubt that this was one time that my father wishes that he had not held my sister and me captive. If there had been no witnesses, he could have just thrown the bread away and pretended like the Bread Bomb had never happened. Instead there were two initially unwilling witnesses who were suddenly ecstatic that they were present to watch his baking embarrassment. We both wanted to laugh. Well I’m absolutely sure I wanted to laugh but I chose not to suffer a fate that was supposed to be reserved for the bread – baking heat.

Foil Funeral

Instead my sister and I looked sympathetically as my father wrapped loaf after loaf of bread in aluminum foil. That moment took on the feeling of someone who was preparing his beloved loaves of bread for entombment – wrapping the loaves in aluminum foil as if the foil was some sort of ceremonial burial garb. Those loaves were indeed dead and no one and I do mean no one was going to be resurrecting them to be eaten…not one slice, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven.

That bread was awful when it came out of the oven and even worse after it cooled. It was not eaten. On the kitchen counter those loaves of bread sat. In those shiny aluminum foil caskets those loaves of bread decayed. They laid on the kitchen counter for what seemed like weeks or at least until they had molded sufficiently to produce enough penicillin to supply the entire city for the duration of the year.

That evening and the subsequent weeks that the bread decomposed on the counter, I learned a couple important lessons:

  1. Parents are Imperfect – In reality, I already knew that parents were not perfect but my father was not one to admit to his own imperfection. His annoying habit was to act as if he was only the second man in history to have been known to walk on water and turn water into wine. However, this time, the Bungling Bread Maker had no choice but to admit to his failing. His attempt to make bread was a colossal failure and there were witnesses to attest to his failure. Failure at making bread equaled my father was not perfect.
  2. Directions are Key – My father had to exit the bread making business before he could even get started. His failure was self-inflicted because he refused to follow directions. Each package contained directions to make a perfect loaf of bread. My father, like so many men, could not be bothered with directions. He was a man’s man and knew more than the person who wrote the directions. Unfortunately, for him, he really didn’t know more than the person who wrote the directions.

On occasion, I have looked back on my father’s bread making tragedy for more than a good laugh. Thanks to that cooking calamity, I have been able to remind myself and now my son that in life perfection may be the goal but imperfection is human. So don’t beat yourself up if everything doesn’t go as initially planned. Simply try again and hopefully learn from the previous encounter – unlike my father who refused to follow the directions. Speaking of directions, remember directions exist for a reason so follow them. Sometimes we are imperfect only because we refuse to follow the directions that have been prepared for us.

Do you expect to be perfect? Do you expect your children to be perfect? Do you know how to follow directions?

If you remember our post Children and Cooking: Creating the Entrepreneurial Spirit, I shared with you how I was going to build a cooking empire until my budding culinary kingdom like Cheech and Chong went “Up in Smoke”. Well, what I failed to mention was what happened only a couple of months after the smoke cleared from my disintegrated food business.

In summary, I hired what I thought was my first unpaid intern whom I later discovered possessed a keenly sophisticated twisted negotiation acumen. My first unpaid intern, my extortionist sister, doubled as a Girl Scout or Brownie. I can’t remember which one exactly. So for the purposes of this story feel free to pick whichever one you want.

All that I can clearly remember is that she belonged to one of those strangely dressed group of girls who bug the heck out you, knocking on your door trying to sell you boxes of cookies that you don’t need and that your waist line can’t afford. So whether my sister wore the brown outfit or wore the green outfit is really irrelevant to this story. The fact that she belonged to one of those insufferable group of little girls in those ridiculous outfits is what matters in this story.

Less is S’more

During the same fall that my cooking empire collapsed, my sister attended some kind of Brownie/Girl Scout sleep over. At the sleepover all the Brownie/Girl Scouts huddled like moths around a campfire. During that campfire excursion, my sister was introduced to some treat that was – at least until she returned home – foreign in my neighborhood.

During that offbeat cult like campfire gathering, my sister was introduced to and learned how to make S’mores. In case, you are unfamiliar with S’mores – as I was until my sister introduced them to me – I’ll take only a second to describe them. S’mores are a dessert made with a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two pieces of graham crackers. S’mores was the abbreviated version of the words Some More.

When she returned home, my sister could not shut up talking about those darn S’mores. Unable to get her sleeping bag and gear in the house fully, she ranted and raved about the taste of the S’mores. She was as excited about the S’mores as anytime that I could remember with the exception of the times she would tell on me and watch me get jacked up for doing something that I wasn’t supposed to be doing.

At her insistence we made S’mores that evening. How did we make S’mores with no campfire? Well if you have been reading all the cooking posts, you know that I was banned from flammable liquids and fires for the duration of the time that I lived at home. So there would be no making S’mores by the fire for us. We had to make our S’mores the unconventional way, in the oven.

As I savored the taste of my first S’more I thought “what’s the big deal?” Was I missing something? Maybe I had to be a girl dressed in a silly brown or green uniform to understand the S’mores significance.

The S’mores were good for a quick chocolate fix and a sugar rush but come on. Really? Certainly, my sister didn’t think the S’mores were better than any of the chocolate cakes my mother baked. With that, I thanked my sister for sharing her S’mores with me and I went to bed giving no further thought to S’mores.

Just Say No

Conversely, I learned the next morning that my sister had given lots of thought to those darn S’mores. When I went outside later that morning, I found that all of the neighborhood kids were looking for their S’mores fix. I mean these kids were feening for a fix like S’mores junkies. You should have seen all the kids standing on corners, drooling and shaking at the mere word S’more. Kids were holding up signs that read things like “I’ll work for S’mores” , “Poor and S’more-less”, “Take my little brother/sister for a S’more” and “Can you spare a S’more?”

Evidently, before I could wake from my S’mores induced sugar coma, get out of bed and go outside my little sister – like all the great marketers/extortionists/pharmaceutical sales representatives (both legal and illegal) – had distributed samples of the leftover S’mores from the night before to all the neighborhood kids. For a S’mores fix the neighborhood kids were taking money out of their piggy banks and stealing money from their sibling’s piggy banks. Kids from my neighborhood were looking for spare change from every location in their houses – from in between couch pillows to the secret emergency money stashes hidden in the sock drawers in their parents’ dressers.

The scene was unreal. These kids wanted S’mores. No these kids needed S’mores. They were hooked and my sister had turned the entire neighborhood into S’mores junkies.

For the Love of Barbie

I don’t know how many batches of S’mores we made that day or how much money my sister made. This time I was her unpaid intern and I wasn’t privy to her financial reports. Worse than being my baby sister’s unpaid intern was that I have no idea how many poor neighborhood kids she turned into S’mores junkies. I’ve felt terrible ever since that day and have prayed that the poor S’mores addicts from my old neighborhood were able to get help. A few time when I have gone home, I have driven through my old neighborhood to see if I could find some of my neighbors to apologize for what my sister did to them. Unfortunately, like Zombie’s they are far too gone and neither understand what I am saying nor do they don’t recognize me. Stay away from the S’mores. Trust me, I’ve seen it first hand – a S’more addiction can be almost impossible to recover.

One thing is for certain, the neighborhood S’mores addiction was no accident. I am fairly certain that my sister concocted the devious plan the moment she was introduced to S’mores during the peculiar cult like campfire. While the other strangely dressed little girls were enjoying their time together singing nonsensical songs by the campfire, my sister had designs on her own taste of capitalistic greed.

She was determined to introduce S’mores to the neighborhood and turn a massive profit. My sister had Barbie dolls and Barbie’s Dream Home to buy and nothing was going to deter her not even the lasting effect S’mores addiction could have on her friends and our neighborhood.

What If?

Seriously, when I think about my sister’s S’mores enterprise and my summer restaurant venture, I wonder what would have happened if those two empire-building interests had been fully developed. I wonder how things might have turned out differently if my father was a successful chef and encouraged me to pursue cooking for a living. What a novelty I might have been, a teenage young man with his own restaurant?

How unique my sister might have been if my mother was a wealthy venture capitalist who could help my sister mass produce her tasty child produced drug, I meant dessert. All the children of the world might be slaves to my sister’s S’mores. Who knows maybe my sister and I would have been world renown like Julia Child and Emeril Lagasse.

The question of what would have happen if my parents were capable of helping my sister and I develop our moments of entrepreneurial spirit is not a question that I ask about my sister and me at the micro level. By most standards my sister and I turned out okay. But could things have been different, more efficient, better? I ask the question in the macro sense. I wonder how much individual potential never gets developed in America. Moreover, I wonder how much individual potential is ignored in America.

The Beatles or the Next Bill Gates?

Does your child have a hobby or interest that could be developed into a skill? Are you planning to do anything to develop that hobby or interest or are you merely going to watch it go up in smoke like my parent’s backyard?

If your child has a hobby or interest you should immediately start trying to help them to develop it into a skill. According to Dr. K. Anders Ericsson if your child is willing to dedicate a minimum of 10,000 hours to deliberate practice and improving their skills (hobby or interest) they would be well on their way to becoming an expert.

Now I know 10,000 hours sounds like a lot of time but it is only 20 hours a week for ten years. Compare the time that it would take for your child to become an expert to the amount of time American children spend watching TV.

Nielsen reports that American children spend more than an entire day each and every week watching television. Children between the ages two to five watch more than 32 hours per week. Children between the ages of six to eleven watch more than 28 hours per week. For those of you counting at home that’s an average of 30 hours per week or 15,000 hours of television in ten years. At the aforementioned average of 30 hours per week, a child from the ages of two to eighteen will watch more than 24,000 hours of television.

What does this all mean? It means that American children sit in front of the television much too long. Eight to twelve additional wasted hours that could be used to become an expert at something worthwhile. An extra 8 to 12 hours each week used to become experts at Nickelodeon, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, The Walking Dead, Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, playing video games and more useless television stuff. It means that ALL our children could be doing incredible things if we, the parents, stopped ignoring the potential of ALL our children and instead provided ALL our children with the tools to FOCUS, climate to PRACTICE and the requisite MENTORSHIP to turn their hobbies and interests into fully developed skills.

Are your children improving and extending the reach and range of their existing skills or are you allowing your children to waste 24,000 hours watching television?

In my previous post, I mentioned having had an opportunity to talk with my sister about some of the lessons we learned which occurred in the kitchen or were connected with food. She reminded me of one such lesson involving a potato and a blind fold.

Steak and Potatoes

One spring evening in 1978, my father decided to surprise the family by preparing dinner. He had gone to the grocery store to pick up the items for dinner. There were bags, bowls and containers everywhere. You might have thought that he was cooking for an army not two adults and two children. But as was his custom, anytime he cooked it became a major production.

A meal that would take any normal human less than an hour to prepare could take my father several hours. He always had to somehow deviate or in his mind improve on an already well-established recipe.

Every teaspoon, tablespoon and cup of an ingredient was painstaking measured. All food was washed and cleaned until the items glisten. The process was so arduous that you were never sure if he was making dinner or preparing a museum exhibit.

Not Quite Iran

Well on this day, much like all the other times that he hijacked the kitchen, my sister and I had to sit in the kitchen with him like two hostages. We were expected to sit and give him our full undivided attention as if we were cavemen watching fire for the first time. As he talked incessantly about his pending food masterpiece all we could hear was the grumbling from the pit of our stomachs.

I’m sure that he could see on our faces the agony of being held captive in the kitchen but it didn’t matter. Even hearing our growling stomachs and knowing that his two only begotten children were agonizing and on the verge of starvation did not persuade the Slow Cooker to do anything different.

Two Blind Mice Trapped With No Cheese

So my sister and I watched my father like two starving mice trapped in a corner – nowhere to go, starving and afraid to make a move. His production started by tenderizing and seasoning four steaks which you should know was a rarity for us. We didn’t have steaks often unless you call cube steaks the same as real steaks. It was usually good ole ground chuck or chicken for us.

After the meat was tenderized he started massaging oils and – what I will call for a lack of a better word – ointments into the steaks. Watching him patting and caressing the steaks made me wonder if the steak was ill or if this was some new mystical lesson we were about to learn about how to resurrect a dead steer.

Next, he began preparing a salad. Now I’m a vegetarian and to this day I’m not sure if I can ever remember seeing so many different types of vegetable put into one salad. I’m not sure where he got many of the things that he put in the salad but I am almost certain that the vegetable he included were not grown in North America.

After what was easily an hour of pure unadulterated torment, he finally started washing the last item of his meal – four potatoes. In addition to the steak and salad, we were going to have baked potatoes. Why didn’t he wash and bake the potatoes first? Didn’t he know that the potatoes would take the longest time to cook? Both excellent questions. I asked myself the same things. The only conclusion that I could come up with then and now is that he enjoyed torturing his children.

When Baking Was Baking

Remember this was 1974, microwaves may have been invented but we were not one of the privileged families who were able to afforded one. So our baked potatoes were going to actually be baked potatoes.

While I waited for the potatoes to cook, I stared intently at the oven as if I could will the potatoes to cook faster. Indistinguishably, I could hear my father rambling on and on about something. His words were like those of Charlie Brown’s teacher, “wah wah woh wah wah”.

Already starving and feeling like a tortured hostage being forced to listen to the ramblings of a mad man, I felt like yelling “I did it, I did it already”. Surely, I was being held captive in an attempt to get me to confess to some heinous crime.

Sitting and waiting for the potatoes to cook was like an accused sweating out an interrogation before his attorney arrived. The potatoes were supposed to take about an hour to cook. Only fifteen minutes had elapsed. Forty-five more minutes before we could eat. Forty-five more long minutes before my father could put some food in his mouth and shut – “the you know what” – up.

Finally, the oven beeped. The potatoes were done. As he handed me one of the potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil, I realized for the first time in hours that he was actually expecting me to eat a baked potato. I didn’t want any stinking baked potato. I wanted French fries. Ordinarily, I would have vehemently objected but on this day perhaps suffering from the mental debilitating effects of starvation, I took the baked potato and sat down at the kitchen table quickly and quietly.

Finally, at least two hours since the Mad Slow Cooker began his food masterpiece, dinner was ready to be served. I salivated over the steak in my plate like Fat Albert preparing to eat a slice of chocolate cake. Similarly, like Fat Albert, I tried to skip out on eating the bowl of vegetables but the Mad Slow Cooker was having none of that. His motto was “no salad, no dinner, no negotiations”.

No Skin For Me

As was my custom, I pulled the skin off of the potato. I wasn’t about to eat the skin but my father had other ideas. As I started pulling the skin off the potato, I could feel someone staring at me. When I looked up to see if my intuition was correct, I saw my father looking at me ever so disapprovingly. What was his problem I wondered? Every time, I removed a piece of skin his countenance became more nefarious.

Was the potato like a voodoo doll? Was there some psychic connection between the potato and my father? Something odd was occurring because each piece of the skin that I extracted from the potato was distressing to him, as if I was pulling the flesh off of his bones.

The Grand Inquisition

Not being able to take what I was doing to the spud any longer, my father asked “why are you pulling all the skin off of that potato?” Like any twelve year old, I appropriately replied, “I don’t like the skin”. “Have you ever tried eating the skin?” he asked. Like any twelve year old, I expectantly replied, “no”. “Well how do you know you don’t like it”, he questioned. Like any twelve year old, I sarcastically replied, “because”.

Well my responses to his three questions were apparently so insufficient the idea of just letting me eat my dinner was unacceptable. Instead, dinner was halted and I was subjected to another of my father’s life lessons.

Don’t Judge a Potato by Its Skin

My father then told me to go to my room. Dad gum (or a word similar to dad gum), I thought I had crossed the line and now I was about to get a whooping with my own belt again. Nate he said, “Go get a tie”. A tie not a belt. Oh thank God.

When I returned from my room, he took the tie from me. He placed the tie around my eyes and tied it around the back of my head. The teachable moment had begun. I would be an unwilling participant in the Mad Slow Cooker’s homemade taste test.

His intent was to convince me that I couldn’t tell the difference between the potato with or without the skin. He proclaimed the skin contained the bulk of the nutrients and as such I should be eating the skin.

As the involuntary Ginny Pig, as much as I hated to admit it, I could not tell the difference. In fact, I ended up unknowingly acknowledging that the potato with skin tasted the best.

This time, my father’s obnoxious habit of needing to take something ordinary and turn into some glorified teachable moment resulted in actually being a valued learning experience. Beyond learning how to tune out my oppressors in a hostage crisis and how to endure starvation, there were several additional things I took away from dinner that night:

  1. Don’t Prejudge – During that late night dinner, I learned that it is best to avoid judging things from an outward appearance. I had decided not to eat the skin of the potato because I did not like the look of the skin. In life, I have learned that I should not prejudge the inside of another because of the appearance of their skin.
  2. Golden May Not Be Gold – When I first recognized that I was going to have to eat a baked potato, I pouted because I was not going to be able to eat French fries. What I now know that I didn’t know as a child was that the French fries were deep fried (in animal fat back in the day) and the frying process had virtually eliminated all the nutritional value of the potato. In life, I have learned that many things that look valuable and precious are not so. Sometimes the thing that is less expensive without the ostentatious packaging is better for you, just as good and works just as well if not better than the lavish thing that is shiny and glitters.
  3. Be Open Minded – As much as I didn’t want to eat the baked potato not only did I have to admit that it was good but by eating it I gave myself an additional dietary option. How dull would my life be if the only thing I ever ate were French fries? As a result of that late night meal, I learned that having different experiences and different types of people to associate with enhances one’s life.

I have a sneaky suspicion now that the next time you have a baked potato you will see it as something more than simply a baked potato. Hopefully, you will see it as an opportunity to unlearn something we have been conditioned almost from birth to do – judge everything we see and hear on its outward appearance and not by its inward expression.

Do you judge everything by its outward appearance or by its inward expression?

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