Last night we watched the first episode of a new show on NBC called, “The Baby Borrowers.” In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s – wait for it – yet another reality show. Wow, big surprise. But the premise is actually kind of cool. They take five teenage couples. All of them think they’re ready for parenthood and they’re like wanting to have a baby now. (That should clue you in on the serious brain damage they already possess.)
So what they do is take these five couples and give them each a house on a cul-de-sac. They’ve never lived together before, so the first couple of days are a new experience just getting along together. Then they introduce – dun, dun, dun – the babies. They each get a real baby for a few days. (The babies’ parents are in another house watching it all on closed-circuit TV in case the teenagers freak out or something.) In future episodes, they will get to try their hands at parenting pre-teens, teenagers, and finally taking care of senior citizens. The tag line for this show is, “It’s not TV, it’s birth control.” Funny.
Of course it’s hilarious to sit and watch these kids totally freak out and be completely overwhelmed, but I started to notice a trend. It seems that the girls were the ones freaking out and the boys were being responsible. That’s roughly 180 degrees from what I expected. I figured the boys would just want to play video games or watch TV and the girls would jump in. But four of the five acted like spoiled little princesses.
Here’s an example. The girls were supposed to wear a “pregnant suit” all day before the babies arrived while the couples attended parenting classes. Most of the girls took it in stride and had fun with it. One of them, a preppy little brat from Georgia, threw a big fit and said she would never wear that suit because it made her look fat. I got news for ya, little Georgia peach, when you’re really pregnant, you’re not gonna be playing tennis all day and you’re gonna look fat for a lot longer than one day!
After some back and forth, she decided that she wasn’t going to go to the classes at all, and locked herself in the bathroom. What did the boy do? He left and went to the classes alone. He was late because of trying to get her to go, but he took responsibility and did it. He even put on the pregnant suit himself.
When the class was over, they all went home and found that there were a lot of baby supplies and some baby furniture that needed to be assembled. Boy, that brought back memories of assembling a crib, high chair, swing, playpen, and about 20,000 other “essentials” for the baby. All I heard from the girls was, “Oh, but I wanted to lay down and take a nap.” Fine, go for it. The boys didn’t whine and complain, they just got down to business.
Once the babies came, the boys went out grocery shopping while the girls stayed with the babies. OK, not exactly the Lewis and Clark expedition, but they were contributing. They changed diapers, took turns feeding, and sterilized bottles when the bratty princesses didn’t want to break a nail. I was very impressed with all the boys, and very unimpressed with nearly all the girls. I hope they get a clue and grow up fast.
It made me think about my own experience as a new parent. I had no experience with babies at all. I had never held a baby, fed a baby, or changed a diaper at all. There’s a picture of me holding my son in the nursery just after he was born. That picture signifies the first time I ever held a baby. And yes, I was scared to death. I was convinced that this delicate little thing was going to disintegrate in my hands if I breathed on it.
But I figured it out. I learned to put alcohol on the cord and lotion on the circumcision, not the other way around. Ooh, that would have been painful! I learned how to change a diaper, and eventually had it down to a science. I could change a diaper in less than 30 seconds, including powder and/or lotion. I learned to tell the difference between cries. “I’m hungry” is different from “I need to be changed” and “If I don’t burp I’m going to explode.”
I was the primary caregiver for both my son and my daughter, a purely financial arrangement. She made more money, so I made the adjustment. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Not to brag, but I think I was damn good at it, too. So why the knock on Dads?
I can’t tell you how many times I would be pushing the stroller to the park, and someone (a Mom, of course) would say, “Oh, are you babysitting today?” No, I’m not babysitting, these are my children and I’m taking care of them like I do every day. Besides, babysitters generally get paid. Do I have to do your job for you, too, or are you going to pull that dirt clod out of your baby’s mouth?
One time, at playgroup, was the worst. We were living overseas because my wife worked for the government. It allowed me to stay home full time with my son, and later, my daughter. My son and I were at playgroup with a room full of military wives. (If there’s a ruder, more condescending group of cackling hens on Earth, I haven’t seen them.) But I digress.
Anyway, my son and I were off playing by ourselves in the corner, as usual, because the other children had been instructed to ignore us. (I know, the whole point of playgroup was for him to interact with other children. Don’t tell me, tell them.) There was a new Mom in the group, and the other Moms were talking to her, when I clearly heard her say, “How can he call himself a man, when he lets his wife support him?” I stood up and walked right over to her. I said, “I was man enough to father this child.” Then I looked behind her. “How can you call yourself a mother when you let your baby climb that bookshelf?” She turned and screamed. Her baby was fine, no harm was done, except to my ego. That was the last session at playgroup for us.
This stereotype has gone on long enough. Men are just as good at parenting as women. Just because I didn’t give birth to them doesn’t mean I can’t take care of them. They’re happy, healthy, and smart. They’re well adjusted and polite. I couldn’t ask for better kids, and I would stack them up against any of the brats in that playgroup. Just remember that the next time you ask a father if he’s “babysitting.” He can probably change a diaper faster and better than you, and I’d feel safer putting the baby down in the crib he assembled.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
A Tale of Two Teams (In One City)
Well, well, it’s that time again. Time for “interleague” baseball. About 10 years ago, Bud Selig (the commissioner of Major League Baseball, in case you’ve been living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears) decided that we should have regular season games between AL and NL teams. In other words, he was trying to create new “rivalries.”
Here in Chicago, that means (yawn) the “Crosstown Classic” between the Cubs and the White Sox. For six games a year, we’re supposed to have this big rivalry between the two, but it’s completely one sided (the rivalry, that is; and sometimes the games too). If you ask a White Sox fan, they’ll say, “Oh, we hate the Cubs so much! They suck! They play in an old smelly ballpark and they haven’t won anything in 100 years. They’re the worst and we hate them!”
Then go and ask a Cub fan. He’ll say, “Who? The Sox? Yeah, good for them for winning the World Series a couple of years ago. It’s about time they beat the Yankees for once. Oh, you meant the White Sox. Yeah, whatever. Our rival is the Cardinals, not the White Sox.” Our only thoughts about the White Sox are when they threw the World Series for money and almost killed the entire sport. Had it not been for Kennesaw Mountain Landis (the first baseball commissioner), the Black Sox scandal probably would have been the end of professional baseball and I would have nothing to write about today.
See, when we think about rivalries, we think of the traditional rivalries. A rivalry is born, not made. You can’t just say, “OK, you two are going to be rivals now.” A rivalry starts because of two teams playing against each other when it means something. Until 1997, the “Crosstown Classic” was one exhibition game each year when both teams had an off day. Not exactly something you build a heated rivalry around.
These made up interleague “rivalries” are a great way to give the ugly stepchild of a major city a chance to get some attention for a few days. If you stop and think about it, that’s what all of them are about. In each major market, there’s always one team that gets the attention and one that gets relatively none. The fans of the “ugly stepchild” team have a big chip on their shoulder while the “favorite” team doesn’t really care. That’s how it is in Chicago. There are millions and millions of Cub fans all over the world, yet the White Sox can’t sell out their own ballpark after winning the World Series.
In New York, you have the Yankees and the Mets. Ask a Met fan who their rival is. They’ll quickly say, “Those damn Yankees! We hate those sons of bitches! Always getting all the press and buying an all-star team every year. We can’t wait to get our shot at beating them!” Now ask a Yankee fan who their rival is. Without hesitation, every Yankee fan will say the Boston Red Sox. Why? Because that is a natural rivalry. Each year the Yankees and Red Sox are fighting it out for the division and sometimes even playing for the pennant. (Just watch ESPN if you don’t believe me.) The Mets have no natural rival, so they make up a rivalry against the Yankees.
It’s the same in other major markets. In Los Angeles, the Dodgers get all the attention, so the Angels fans have a chip on their shoulder. In the Bay Area the Oakland A’s don’t get anywhere near the attention as the Giants, even though they have their share of championships. Meanwhile, the Dodgers and the Giants have had a long and heated rivalry that has followed each team from New York / Brooklyn out to California. Now these are two teams that really hate each other! But the Angels and A’s don’t even have a rivalry with each other, much less anyone else. So they have to make up a rivalry with the popular team in town.
And poor Kansas City. They have no natural rival either, so MLB makes up the “fight for Missouri” between them and the Cardinals. Note to the Royals: even if you have a good team, the Cardinals are still paying attention to the Cubs and not to you.
That said, the White Sox fans were talking a bunch of smack last week before the first three games at Wrigley Field. Ozzie Guillen was his usual profanity-laced whiny self, blaming everyone else for everything instead of admitting that he’s pretty much useless as a manager. The radio and TV stations were predicting the “June Swoon” of the Cubs and preparing the coronation of the White Sox as champions of Chicago once again. Then those pesky Cubbies put a wrench in the works by sweeping the three games with little or no difficulty. So what, who cares, and/or big deal.
There are three more games left in this made-up rivalry this weekend at “U.S. Sell-Your-Name Field.” I’m sure there will be a lot of hurt feelings either way, and I’m quite sure that I don’t care. Personally I’m waiting for the end of July. Like I always say, the reason it’s called “America’s Pastime” is because we use baseball to pass the time between the Super Bowl and training camp. Cubs fan, White Sox fan, it doesn’t matter how much we’re supposed to hate each other during baseball season. We are all Chicago Bears fans, and we all hate the Packers all year round.
Here in Chicago, that means (yawn) the “Crosstown Classic” between the Cubs and the White Sox. For six games a year, we’re supposed to have this big rivalry between the two, but it’s completely one sided (the rivalry, that is; and sometimes the games too). If you ask a White Sox fan, they’ll say, “Oh, we hate the Cubs so much! They suck! They play in an old smelly ballpark and they haven’t won anything in 100 years. They’re the worst and we hate them!”
Then go and ask a Cub fan. He’ll say, “Who? The Sox? Yeah, good for them for winning the World Series a couple of years ago. It’s about time they beat the Yankees for once. Oh, you meant the White Sox. Yeah, whatever. Our rival is the Cardinals, not the White Sox.” Our only thoughts about the White Sox are when they threw the World Series for money and almost killed the entire sport. Had it not been for Kennesaw Mountain Landis (the first baseball commissioner), the Black Sox scandal probably would have been the end of professional baseball and I would have nothing to write about today.
See, when we think about rivalries, we think of the traditional rivalries. A rivalry is born, not made. You can’t just say, “OK, you two are going to be rivals now.” A rivalry starts because of two teams playing against each other when it means something. Until 1997, the “Crosstown Classic” was one exhibition game each year when both teams had an off day. Not exactly something you build a heated rivalry around.
These made up interleague “rivalries” are a great way to give the ugly stepchild of a major city a chance to get some attention for a few days. If you stop and think about it, that’s what all of them are about. In each major market, there’s always one team that gets the attention and one that gets relatively none. The fans of the “ugly stepchild” team have a big chip on their shoulder while the “favorite” team doesn’t really care. That’s how it is in Chicago. There are millions and millions of Cub fans all over the world, yet the White Sox can’t sell out their own ballpark after winning the World Series.
In New York, you have the Yankees and the Mets. Ask a Met fan who their rival is. They’ll quickly say, “Those damn Yankees! We hate those sons of bitches! Always getting all the press and buying an all-star team every year. We can’t wait to get our shot at beating them!” Now ask a Yankee fan who their rival is. Without hesitation, every Yankee fan will say the Boston Red Sox. Why? Because that is a natural rivalry. Each year the Yankees and Red Sox are fighting it out for the division and sometimes even playing for the pennant. (Just watch ESPN if you don’t believe me.) The Mets have no natural rival, so they make up a rivalry against the Yankees.
It’s the same in other major markets. In Los Angeles, the Dodgers get all the attention, so the Angels fans have a chip on their shoulder. In the Bay Area the Oakland A’s don’t get anywhere near the attention as the Giants, even though they have their share of championships. Meanwhile, the Dodgers and the Giants have had a long and heated rivalry that has followed each team from New York / Brooklyn out to California. Now these are two teams that really hate each other! But the Angels and A’s don’t even have a rivalry with each other, much less anyone else. So they have to make up a rivalry with the popular team in town.
And poor Kansas City. They have no natural rival either, so MLB makes up the “fight for Missouri” between them and the Cardinals. Note to the Royals: even if you have a good team, the Cardinals are still paying attention to the Cubs and not to you.
That said, the White Sox fans were talking a bunch of smack last week before the first three games at Wrigley Field. Ozzie Guillen was his usual profanity-laced whiny self, blaming everyone else for everything instead of admitting that he’s pretty much useless as a manager. The radio and TV stations were predicting the “June Swoon” of the Cubs and preparing the coronation of the White Sox as champions of Chicago once again. Then those pesky Cubbies put a wrench in the works by sweeping the three games with little or no difficulty. So what, who cares, and/or big deal.
There are three more games left in this made-up rivalry this weekend at “U.S. Sell-Your-Name Field.” I’m sure there will be a lot of hurt feelings either way, and I’m quite sure that I don’t care. Personally I’m waiting for the end of July. Like I always say, the reason it’s called “America’s Pastime” is because we use baseball to pass the time between the Super Bowl and training camp. Cubs fan, White Sox fan, it doesn’t matter how much we’re supposed to hate each other during baseball season. We are all Chicago Bears fans, and we all hate the Packers all year round.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Wud U Spel Dat, Plees?
I heard something interesting on the news this morning while I was getting ready for work. Did you hear this? Someone claims that the English language is “too hard” for children to learn, so they want to change the way a couple hundred words are spelled. Words like “friend” and “soldier.” And they said that there are too many spellings of “to.” I guess that more than two is too many to understand. (There, I just used all of them in one sentence correctly; what’s to understand?) So they want to make it “less confusing.”
I guess the point is to advance literacy. I think the point is that we haven’t thought up enough ways to coddle these kids, so let’s think up one more. Personally, if I’m a kid and they say that I’m too stupid to learn the language, I’m offended. I mean, my parents and grandparents had enough brain cells to figure it out, right? And if we change the spelling of all these words, the older generation will have to adjust and relearn all the words. Does that mean the kids are just stupid? I don’t think so. There are several reasons why the kids can’t figure out how to spell, and most of them are our fault. Here’s a few of the major reasons:
The main point of changing English is because “many of the words don’t look like they sound.” Yeah? Big deal. English doesn’t have a patent on that either. Have you checked out other languages? If we’re going to change all the English words so that they are phonetically correct, then we’ll need to “fix” the other languages too. We can start by spelling the name of our southern neighbor to “May-He-Ko.”
I guess the point is to advance literacy. I think the point is that we haven’t thought up enough ways to coddle these kids, so let’s think up one more. Personally, if I’m a kid and they say that I’m too stupid to learn the language, I’m offended. I mean, my parents and grandparents had enough brain cells to figure it out, right? And if we change the spelling of all these words, the older generation will have to adjust and relearn all the words. Does that mean the kids are just stupid? I don’t think so. There are several reasons why the kids can’t figure out how to spell, and most of them are our fault. Here’s a few of the major reasons:
- Spell check – Yes, Bill Gates, it’s all your fault. You and Melissa can stop hiding behind your charitable foundation and own up. Until this generation, we used a different spell checker called our brain. We wrote things down instead of typing everything out on the computer, running it through the spell check, dictionary, and thesaurus, and then we read it again to make sure it was right. Kids today are lazy because they haven’t ever had to actually do the work. Everything is a template for them, with a wizard to help them make a coherent thought. And they still ask for help!
- Texting and IM – You want to talk about the downfall of the English language? Here it is right here. Everything has a shortcut. You can forget about using three different spellings of the words to, too, and two. Now we just use one, with no letters! The number 2 works for all three when you’re texting or chatting online. We’ve saved some keystrokes with the words “you” and “are” as well. Now they’re down to just one letter. There’s an acronym for laughing out loud (LOL) or rolling on the floor laughing (ROFL). Nobody cares about proper spelling or grammar anymore. I’m pretty pissed off about it; R U 2?
- Schools – Yeah, go ahead and comment about how those poor teachers are overworked and underpaid, but I know better. Where I live, they average over $80K and get three months of vacation and at least twice the holidays I get. Yeah, really tough. But it’s not all their fault either. The curriculum they are given is worthless. Everything has to be all touchy-feely, nobody’s-ever-wrong, give-them-a-trophy-for-trying PC crap. Nobody asked me how I felt about my answer. Was it right or was it wrong? If it was wrong, it wasn’t, “Oh, nice try,” it was “Wrong! Do it again!” Even the teachers themselves have gone through that system and are functionally illiterate now. Now the teacher, the one who’s supposed to know better, is the one using an apostrophe-s to make a word plural. (Just in case you’re under 25 and didn’t get that, the correct plural for “idiot” is “idiots,” not “idiot’s.”)
- The Media – I’m not letting you off the hook either. You know who you are. In order to look “cool” to the young consumers, the mass media is adopting these stupid shortcuts too (“2 Fast, 2 Furious”; yeah, we get it, it’s a sequel). Rappers have names that look like they threw a bunch of Scrabble tiles on the table, and even TV newscasts put graphics up with the wrong spelling. I swear, one of these days I’m going to call up CNN or Fox News or ESPN and ask them how much they’re paying the idiot typing the ticker, because if it’s more than a dollar, it’s way too much.
- The Parents – You didn’t think I was going to forget the lazy parents, did you? These are the spoiled brats from the ‘70s and ’80s who started the whole thing, and now they don’t know the English language enough to tell their children that they’re doing it wrong. But then again, most of them don’t realize it, because a nanny is raising their kids anyway. Way too many young parents are more interested in working all the time than in paying attention to their children. I understand that many households need two incomes; mine does. But do you really need to work 60 hours a week and sell your soul to a corporation that doesn’t even know who you are? They need to get their priorities in order and realize what’s really important. (Hint: it’s not your stupid job, because the company doesn’t care about you at all. You can and will be replaced when they feel like it.)
The main point of changing English is because “many of the words don’t look like they sound.” Yeah? Big deal. English doesn’t have a patent on that either. Have you checked out other languages? If we’re going to change all the English words so that they are phonetically correct, then we’ll need to “fix” the other languages too. We can start by spelling the name of our southern neighbor to “May-He-Ko.”
Monday, June 9, 2008
That Durn New-Fangled Technology
Well, you haven’t heard from me in a few days. The question is, did you notice? Well, there’s a good reason. This website has a feature where you can upload blog entries and set them to post at a certain date and time. I guess I didn’t do it right, because the last three days didn’t post at all. And now I can’t find them on the site. Nice, huh?
Oh well, at least I remembered to save them on my home computer, so I’ll just manually upload them in the coming days. This way I have some extras on hand for days when I’m too tired or too lazy. What really, really pisses me off is that I work in IT! And I’m a former web designer! So this totally makes me look like an idiot. You would think that there’s no website in the world that would stump me, right? Wrong. In other words, (wait for it…here it comes) I’m getting old. For those of you are as ancient as me, remember back to those days before we had all this technology? Today’s kids have it so much easier than we did back then.
“Rabbit Ears?” What are they, Dad? (I’m just kidding. My kids know what those are. Those are the last resort to watch the Bears game after my wife “forgot” to pay the cable bill.) And what’s a “test pattern?” Hand to God, they actually asked me that once. You mean you had three channels, and that’s all? (OK, I’m exaggerating. In central Illinois, we also had the local PBS station and sometimes WGN from Chicago. There was also a cool independent station out of Indianapolis that you could pull in on a clear night.)
Remember when you cooked food in an oven? No, not a microwave oven, an oven. Yes, that’s how we heated up our leftovers too. A little aluminum foil over the plate, and about 30 minutes at low temperature. Do you think you kids could wait that long? Today’s world is too rush-rush, let’s go, I want it now. Throw it in the nuke box, press a button, then we have to wait a whole 8 minutes before the TV dinner is done. OH…MY…GOD, I’m going to starve!
There was no Internet back then, and no computer in the house. A computer was something that NASA used to get men on the moon, not something you used to chat with your friends and play games. If I didn’t know the answer to something, I would ask my parents. What was their answer? “Look it up.” Luckily, I had a full set of World Book encyclopedias for reference. But if my answer wasn’t there, I had a choice to make. Did I really want to know that badly? Or, egad, what if I needed to know for a school report? Then I had to go to a place that we called “the library.” It was this big building downtown (about an hour’s bike ride each way) and it had thousands and thousands of books in it. In school we learned how to use a “card catalog,” because remember, no computers at the library either. So we had to find books the old fashioned way.
If we wanted to chat with our friends, we had to pick up the telephone. Not the cell phone, and we couldn’t “text” them. We had the regular phone mounted on the wall, with a standard three foot cord that was always tangled up because my stupid sister would wrap it around her finger while she talked to her loser boyfriend for hours on end. No privacy there, unless you got a “privacy phone,” which meant that you had another one in another room that wasn’t the kitchen. Of course, that phone was tied to the wall too, and you couldn’t just get up and walk around with it. I remember the day we got a “touch-tone” telephone; it was like we had moved up from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. No, wait. That would be a better analogy for the day my Mom went from using a hot rock to an electric iron. (Just kidding; she didn’t get the iron until later.)
We didn’t have video games back then, either. We had board games, card games, and games we made up ourselves, but no video games. If you wanted extra bonus points for murdering a police officer, you had to do it in real life because “Grand Theft Auto” didn’t exist yet. Interesting side note: in real life, I don’t recall anyone getting bonus points for shooting a cop or driving up on the sidewalk to mow down innocent bystanders. "Extra time," maybe, but no bonus points.
No, we didn’t have wonderful elaborate fantasy worlds to enter. We had to make do with what we had. We had to take a regular old ball and bat and glove and go outside to play baseball. Imagine what fun we would have had if we could have had the whole neighborhood crammed into a small room with artificial light and simulated a baseball game on the Wii! Instead of having high definition, stereo surround sound war games, we had to “pretend” to shoot aliens or Nazis or Commies. We acted like we were having fun, but I’m sure that deep down we were wishing that we could just control a virtual character with our thumbs instead of running around and getting exercise out in the fresh air and using our “imagination.”
So the $64,000 question is, are we better off with the new-fangled technology?
Oh well, at least I remembered to save them on my home computer, so I’ll just manually upload them in the coming days. This way I have some extras on hand for days when I’m too tired or too lazy. What really, really pisses me off is that I work in IT! And I’m a former web designer! So this totally makes me look like an idiot. You would think that there’s no website in the world that would stump me, right? Wrong. In other words, (wait for it…here it comes) I’m getting old. For those of you are as ancient as me, remember back to those days before we had all this technology? Today’s kids have it so much easier than we did back then.
“Rabbit Ears?” What are they, Dad? (I’m just kidding. My kids know what those are. Those are the last resort to watch the Bears game after my wife “forgot” to pay the cable bill.) And what’s a “test pattern?” Hand to God, they actually asked me that once. You mean you had three channels, and that’s all? (OK, I’m exaggerating. In central Illinois, we also had the local PBS station and sometimes WGN from Chicago. There was also a cool independent station out of Indianapolis that you could pull in on a clear night.)
Remember when you cooked food in an oven? No, not a microwave oven, an oven. Yes, that’s how we heated up our leftovers too. A little aluminum foil over the plate, and about 30 minutes at low temperature. Do you think you kids could wait that long? Today’s world is too rush-rush, let’s go, I want it now. Throw it in the nuke box, press a button, then we have to wait a whole 8 minutes before the TV dinner is done. OH…MY…GOD, I’m going to starve!
There was no Internet back then, and no computer in the house. A computer was something that NASA used to get men on the moon, not something you used to chat with your friends and play games. If I didn’t know the answer to something, I would ask my parents. What was their answer? “Look it up.” Luckily, I had a full set of World Book encyclopedias for reference. But if my answer wasn’t there, I had a choice to make. Did I really want to know that badly? Or, egad, what if I needed to know for a school report? Then I had to go to a place that we called “the library.” It was this big building downtown (about an hour’s bike ride each way) and it had thousands and thousands of books in it. In school we learned how to use a “card catalog,” because remember, no computers at the library either. So we had to find books the old fashioned way.
If we wanted to chat with our friends, we had to pick up the telephone. Not the cell phone, and we couldn’t “text” them. We had the regular phone mounted on the wall, with a standard three foot cord that was always tangled up because my stupid sister would wrap it around her finger while she talked to her loser boyfriend for hours on end. No privacy there, unless you got a “privacy phone,” which meant that you had another one in another room that wasn’t the kitchen. Of course, that phone was tied to the wall too, and you couldn’t just get up and walk around with it. I remember the day we got a “touch-tone” telephone; it was like we had moved up from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. No, wait. That would be a better analogy for the day my Mom went from using a hot rock to an electric iron. (Just kidding; she didn’t get the iron until later.)
We didn’t have video games back then, either. We had board games, card games, and games we made up ourselves, but no video games. If you wanted extra bonus points for murdering a police officer, you had to do it in real life because “Grand Theft Auto” didn’t exist yet. Interesting side note: in real life, I don’t recall anyone getting bonus points for shooting a cop or driving up on the sidewalk to mow down innocent bystanders. "Extra time," maybe, but no bonus points.
No, we didn’t have wonderful elaborate fantasy worlds to enter. We had to make do with what we had. We had to take a regular old ball and bat and glove and go outside to play baseball. Imagine what fun we would have had if we could have had the whole neighborhood crammed into a small room with artificial light and simulated a baseball game on the Wii! Instead of having high definition, stereo surround sound war games, we had to “pretend” to shoot aliens or Nazis or Commies. We acted like we were having fun, but I’m sure that deep down we were wishing that we could just control a virtual character with our thumbs instead of running around and getting exercise out in the fresh air and using our “imagination.”
So the $64,000 question is, are we better off with the new-fangled technology?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Elder-berry Whine
I spend a lot of time posting on the message boards, and it’s fun. There are about a dozen or so “regulars” there, and we take turns making fun of the advice columnists or the idiots that write in. Today’s “Dear Abby” just made my blood boil.
The letter writer was writing in to get Abby’s opinion on her situation. She and her sister are 15 and 16 and their parents “make” them go and visit their grandparents for a couple of hours one Saturday a month. They “don’t like to waste” their Saturday this way, and they remind us that they are old enough to stay home alone. OK, umm, that’s not the point, Brat 1 and Brat 2.
Some of the responses on the message board were even worse. “Take along a book to read or a video game” was one of the responses. “The parents shouldn’t force them to go” was another. Are you kidding me? If that’s the attitude of the parents, then I’m not surprised the kids are spoiled, selfish brats.
Kids, listen closely. Yes, you. Turn off the iPod, put down the cell phone and shut off the PS3. There is a reason that we are the parents and you are the children. We know more than you! I know this might come as a shock to you, but you actually know very little. In your teen years, you know about 10% of what you need to know to stay alive. That’s why you still live with Mommy and Daddy, because you would not survive if they didn’t take care of you.
By the time you’re in your 20s, you’ve acquired some additional knowledge, but still only about 25% of what you need. Now you know how to make yourself look good, which is very helpful. With that skill, you can talk your way out of a speeding ticket and you can procreate (another useful skill). If you haven’t mastered the “looking good” thing, another 20-ish skill will help you procreate. That is, of course, the art of drinking. To be good at that, you’ll want to learn how to cure a hangover and make it to work the next morning.
In your 30s, you acquire such skills as changing diapers (an inevitable side effect from the procreation skill learned in the 20s, which was still fun back then). You also learn how to pay bills, if you are actually going to survive. Some people never learn this very important skill and, let’s face it, you can just stop right there. Mastering the remote control (generally a male skill) comes during this decade. Since you have procreated and generally have no life, your time is spent living vicariously through others, usually through reality television. At this point you are approaching 40% of what you need to know.
In your 40s you don’t really learn anything “new,” but you start to build on previously learned skills. Raising children goes from basic maintenance of feeding, changing, and clothing to actually teaching them the skills they need. You start to relay values and morals, and by the time they are teenagers you have successfully given them 10% of what they need to know to stay alive. Hey, don’t blame me that they’re still sponging off you. You are now a master of multiple remote controls, and you know the difference between the TV, cable, DVD, and stereo remotes by touch. You have gone beyond merely paying bills to actually managing your money. By the end of your 40s you have acquired 50% of what you need to know. That’s why they call it “middle age.”
In your 50s and 60s, your children are grown and out of the house, but still totally dependent on you, so you can’t quite get past 75%. You’re a financial wizard, and you haven’t quite forgotten all the technological skills you learned earlier. Just wait, though, you’ll forget them soon enough.
Sometime after 70 (it varies from person to person), you finally make it. You possess all the knowledge you need to stay alive. However, we all know that the human brain has a finite storage capacity. So in order to use your new-found knowledge (whatever it is, I'm not there yet myself), you need to lose something that you don’t need. So I guess we really don’t need to know how to use the remotes and computers and ATMs and cell phones after all.
Now, most people call this loss of previous knowledge “senility.” But those of us who aren’t there yet don’t understand. You never hear an 80 year old calling another 80 year old senile, do you? They know what they need to know, and the rest of us are taking up valuable space with useless knowledge. They’re trying to tell us, but we don’t listen and call them “senile.”
Now what does all of this have to do with the spoiled teenage brats? Simple. If they would spend one Saturday a month listening to Grandma and Grandpa instead of chatting with the 45 year old guy disguised as a 16 year old on MySpace, they could be ahead of the game. We have a very short window of opportunity to learn from them, so we should take advantage of it. Because when we’re in our 30s and 40s, and we realize that they knew what we needed to know, they’re gone. So kids, listen to them while they’re still around. Oh, and listen to me. Always listen to me.
The letter writer was writing in to get Abby’s opinion on her situation. She and her sister are 15 and 16 and their parents “make” them go and visit their grandparents for a couple of hours one Saturday a month. They “don’t like to waste” their Saturday this way, and they remind us that they are old enough to stay home alone. OK, umm, that’s not the point, Brat 1 and Brat 2.
Some of the responses on the message board were even worse. “Take along a book to read or a video game” was one of the responses. “The parents shouldn’t force them to go” was another. Are you kidding me? If that’s the attitude of the parents, then I’m not surprised the kids are spoiled, selfish brats.
Kids, listen closely. Yes, you. Turn off the iPod, put down the cell phone and shut off the PS3. There is a reason that we are the parents and you are the children. We know more than you! I know this might come as a shock to you, but you actually know very little. In your teen years, you know about 10% of what you need to know to stay alive. That’s why you still live with Mommy and Daddy, because you would not survive if they didn’t take care of you.
By the time you’re in your 20s, you’ve acquired some additional knowledge, but still only about 25% of what you need. Now you know how to make yourself look good, which is very helpful. With that skill, you can talk your way out of a speeding ticket and you can procreate (another useful skill). If you haven’t mastered the “looking good” thing, another 20-ish skill will help you procreate. That is, of course, the art of drinking. To be good at that, you’ll want to learn how to cure a hangover and make it to work the next morning.
In your 30s, you acquire such skills as changing diapers (an inevitable side effect from the procreation skill learned in the 20s, which was still fun back then). You also learn how to pay bills, if you are actually going to survive. Some people never learn this very important skill and, let’s face it, you can just stop right there. Mastering the remote control (generally a male skill) comes during this decade. Since you have procreated and generally have no life, your time is spent living vicariously through others, usually through reality television. At this point you are approaching 40% of what you need to know.
In your 40s you don’t really learn anything “new,” but you start to build on previously learned skills. Raising children goes from basic maintenance of feeding, changing, and clothing to actually teaching them the skills they need. You start to relay values and morals, and by the time they are teenagers you have successfully given them 10% of what they need to know to stay alive. Hey, don’t blame me that they’re still sponging off you. You are now a master of multiple remote controls, and you know the difference between the TV, cable, DVD, and stereo remotes by touch. You have gone beyond merely paying bills to actually managing your money. By the end of your 40s you have acquired 50% of what you need to know. That’s why they call it “middle age.”
In your 50s and 60s, your children are grown and out of the house, but still totally dependent on you, so you can’t quite get past 75%. You’re a financial wizard, and you haven’t quite forgotten all the technological skills you learned earlier. Just wait, though, you’ll forget them soon enough.
Sometime after 70 (it varies from person to person), you finally make it. You possess all the knowledge you need to stay alive. However, we all know that the human brain has a finite storage capacity. So in order to use your new-found knowledge (whatever it is, I'm not there yet myself), you need to lose something that you don’t need. So I guess we really don’t need to know how to use the remotes and computers and ATMs and cell phones after all.
Now, most people call this loss of previous knowledge “senility.” But those of us who aren’t there yet don’t understand. You never hear an 80 year old calling another 80 year old senile, do you? They know what they need to know, and the rest of us are taking up valuable space with useless knowledge. They’re trying to tell us, but we don’t listen and call them “senile.”
Now what does all of this have to do with the spoiled teenage brats? Simple. If they would spend one Saturday a month listening to Grandma and Grandpa instead of chatting with the 45 year old guy disguised as a 16 year old on MySpace, they could be ahead of the game. We have a very short window of opportunity to learn from them, so we should take advantage of it. Because when we’re in our 30s and 40s, and we realize that they knew what we needed to know, they’re gone. So kids, listen to them while they’re still around. Oh, and listen to me. Always listen to me.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Florigan, Begin Again
What happened to following rules? Without rules, we have no civilization, we have no order, we have chaos and anarchy. Once we create rules, we need to follow them or they lose their worth. As I sit and watch the returns from the last Presidential primary, I’m reminded of the importance of rules.
Two states – Florida and Michigan – decided that they didn’t want Iowa and New Hampshire to get all the attention of the first caucus and primary, so they moved their primaries ahead on the calendar. The Republican and Democratic leaders told them that they were not to have a primary before Super Tuesday (Feb. 5th). Both ignored the leadership and had their primaries anyway.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you blatantly break the rules, you are not allowed to whine about the consequences of those actions. As soon as Florida and Michigan decided to move their primaries ahead of Super Tuesday, the Republican committee penalized them by removing half their delegates. (This was not good news for Rudy Giuliani, who made the biggest bone-head move in political history by ignoring all the caucuses and primaries and putting everything on Florida.)
The Democrats said that neither state could have any delegates at all because of breaking the rules. Almost immediately, one candidate (cough, Clinton, cough) started whining about it. Why is that? Well, in Florida, all the major candidates had agreed not to campaign. Of course, it was way too late for Hillary to pull her TV commercials, and that public appearance? Oh, that was scheduled way in advance and she had to show up there on Election Day. So of course, she won the majority in Florida.
Then there was Michigan. Obama and Edwards agreed to remove themselves from the ballot completely, but apparently the Clintons didn’t get that memo. (Make no mistake, it is “the Clintons.” As much as they want to say that the McCain campaign is a “third Bush term,” they fail to mention that Hillary’s campaign is definitely a third term of the Clinton administration.) So Hillary got over 50% of the vote, even though “uncommitted” almost beat her. That would have been really funny.
As if on cue, she started talking about the poor voters being “disenfranchised.” In other words, I want those votes! I earned them by stabbing my fellow candidates in the back, and they’re mine! Mine, mine, mine! So in order to get them, I’m going to blame the Democratic leadership for not allowing these poor people to have their votes counted. Nice, Hillary (and Bill). Well played.
So, predictably, the Democratic leadership caved in and allowed Florida and Michigan to have half of their delegates. In other words, they changed the rules in the middle of the game. Didn’t you hate it when the kid who was losing tried to do that? I remember that. I always hit the baseball over the fence easily, so they made up a new “rule” just for me. Not only did I have to hit the ball over the fence, I also had to hit it over the street on the other side of the fence for it to count as a home run. Over the fence was just a double. (Oh, and I had to climb the fence and retrieve the ball, too.)
That’s what this reminds me of. The whiny kid isn’t good enough to win in an even match, so he/she changes the rules in the middle of the game. So now we are teaching our children that this is acceptable behavior. If you’re not good enough, just bitch and moan about it and they’ll change the rules so you can win. If it works for the Presidential candidates, why not for you too?
Of course, in this particular case, Karma won out, because Hillary didn’t win even with the extra votes from Florida and Michigan, so maybe there is a lesson there for the kids. If you’re not good enough to win on your own, and you whine about it and get the rules changed, that still doesn’t mean you are going to win. You’ll look even more pathetic as a whiny loser. So if you’re going to lose anyway, lose with a little dignity and you’ll earn some respect.
Two states – Florida and Michigan – decided that they didn’t want Iowa and New Hampshire to get all the attention of the first caucus and primary, so they moved their primaries ahead on the calendar. The Republican and Democratic leaders told them that they were not to have a primary before Super Tuesday (Feb. 5th). Both ignored the leadership and had their primaries anyway.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you blatantly break the rules, you are not allowed to whine about the consequences of those actions. As soon as Florida and Michigan decided to move their primaries ahead of Super Tuesday, the Republican committee penalized them by removing half their delegates. (This was not good news for Rudy Giuliani, who made the biggest bone-head move in political history by ignoring all the caucuses and primaries and putting everything on Florida.)
The Democrats said that neither state could have any delegates at all because of breaking the rules. Almost immediately, one candidate (cough, Clinton, cough) started whining about it. Why is that? Well, in Florida, all the major candidates had agreed not to campaign. Of course, it was way too late for Hillary to pull her TV commercials, and that public appearance? Oh, that was scheduled way in advance and she had to show up there on Election Day. So of course, she won the majority in Florida.
Then there was Michigan. Obama and Edwards agreed to remove themselves from the ballot completely, but apparently the Clintons didn’t get that memo. (Make no mistake, it is “the Clintons.” As much as they want to say that the McCain campaign is a “third Bush term,” they fail to mention that Hillary’s campaign is definitely a third term of the Clinton administration.) So Hillary got over 50% of the vote, even though “uncommitted” almost beat her. That would have been really funny.
As if on cue, she started talking about the poor voters being “disenfranchised.” In other words, I want those votes! I earned them by stabbing my fellow candidates in the back, and they’re mine! Mine, mine, mine! So in order to get them, I’m going to blame the Democratic leadership for not allowing these poor people to have their votes counted. Nice, Hillary (and Bill). Well played.
So, predictably, the Democratic leadership caved in and allowed Florida and Michigan to have half of their delegates. In other words, they changed the rules in the middle of the game. Didn’t you hate it when the kid who was losing tried to do that? I remember that. I always hit the baseball over the fence easily, so they made up a new “rule” just for me. Not only did I have to hit the ball over the fence, I also had to hit it over the street on the other side of the fence for it to count as a home run. Over the fence was just a double. (Oh, and I had to climb the fence and retrieve the ball, too.)
That’s what this reminds me of. The whiny kid isn’t good enough to win in an even match, so he/she changes the rules in the middle of the game. So now we are teaching our children that this is acceptable behavior. If you’re not good enough, just bitch and moan about it and they’ll change the rules so you can win. If it works for the Presidential candidates, why not for you too?
Of course, in this particular case, Karma won out, because Hillary didn’t win even with the extra votes from Florida and Michigan, so maybe there is a lesson there for the kids. If you’re not good enough to win on your own, and you whine about it and get the rules changed, that still doesn’t mean you are going to win. You’ll look even more pathetic as a whiny loser. So if you’re going to lose anyway, lose with a little dignity and you’ll earn some respect.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Teach your children well...
Well, I’m back to being grumpy. Being sick and tired doesn’t help. When I don’t feel good, I usually just want to be left alone. Today is the opposite. I wanted to be taken care of today and pampered, but I was left alone. Sometimes it works out like that. So as I worked from home today, I sat and stewed.
Anyway, as I told you yesterday, my son graduated from high school. I tried to enjoy it, and I really did. But there were some things that happened that really pissed me off, and I wondered: does anyone display proper manners anymore? What happened to common courtesy?
We got there early and found a good seat. We knew exactly where he would be sitting so we found a place in the bleachers where we could see him. The first thing I noticed was a woman placing her purse, jacket, and other items along the first row of bleachers to save them. OK, fine, people do that. But it was apparent that she was saving a lot of seats. (Keep in mind that each student was given four tickets.) As seats were filling up, she was still saving all those seats. At a couple minutes after noon, when the students were already starting their processional, about 10 people all walked in and sat down there.
That brings up another item. A lot of people were walking in at the last minute, and acted surprised when there were no seats right up front. Well, duh. Hello, this can’t be the first time you’ve attended a school function here (or maybe it is). You should know by now that all the good seats are gone at least an hour before the start. So don’t get this pissy look on your face when the lady in the front row says that she’s saving those 10 seats for someone else.
Those ten other people were all dressed in jeans and T-shirts too. Come on, your kid graduates high school once. Don’t you think you could put on a decent shirt and pants just once? I looked around me and I saw even more. Jeans, and not even nice ones. Dirty ones with holes in them, and shorts too. Baseball caps? Come on. At least make it a Cubs hat.
Now I understand why I saw some of the kids wearing shorts, T-shirts, sneakers, and flip-flops under their gowns. Everyone got written instructions on the proper attire for the ceremony, and those of us who signed up for the newsletter got them emailed to us as well. I don’t remember anyone ever having to tell me that you wear nice clothes to a formal ceremony. And nobody had to tell my son, either.
I’ve been to these ceremonies and awards before for both of my kids, and I know from experience that no matter how many times you remind the audience beforehand, some of them will act like idiots. The principal made a speech at the beginning, telling everyone that the tradition here is to have a solemn ceremony. He asked that any shouts or chants or any other celebratory displays should be kept private within the family setting afterward. That didn’t last long.
We didn’t even get through the letter C before it happened. At the reading of one of the students named Chavez, someone in the audience blasted an air horn and about a dozen people started cheering. An air horn! If ever there was a good reason to say, “WTF?” this was it. It’s one thing when you are all caught up in the moment and proudly shout when your child’s name is called, but to actually bring an air horn with you to graduation? That’s premeditated idiocy.
There were many more acts of total disrespect, but none was worse than the air horn. What was really sad was that we didn’t hear the next child’s name at all. And that happened again and again, every time someone’s family decided to do a long cheer. Yeah, I am very proud of my son, but I was proud of the child next in line too.
And since when did I become a combination seatback and footrest? The guy behind me (wearing denim shorts and a T-shirt, of course) had his knee in my back for two hours. The old lady in front of me (who came in at the last minute because her seat was saved for her) leaned back on my legs for two hours. By the time we got to the letter S, I was on the front edge of my seat with my legs turned to the side, and that wasn’t enough room for them.
Oh, there’s more. Two people who came late didn’t seem to want to climb up alllllll those stairs to find a seat, so they decided that they should sit at the bottom of the bleachers on the stairs. Two other people wanted to take pictures so they came down and sat on the stairs too. Now, I purposely sat next to the stairs about three rows up, so we could make a good exit and be high enough up to take pictures. Again, come early and get a good seat.
The last straw was when we left. They announced that we should all wait until all the graduates had left before exiting the gymnasium. Obviously there were several hundred deaf people in the audience, because as each row of graduates left, audience members left their seats and moved up to the next row closer to the door. Sheesh, people, do you have a hot date or something? Were you jonesing because we asked you to turn off your cell phone for two hours?
I’ll ask again: what happened to common courtesy and manners? I would say that it’s because we live around a lot of rich people with a sense of entitlement, but I’ve seen it when we lived in a poor town too. All I can say is that somebody needs to start teaching their children manners, but it’s not going to be easy to teach them something you never learned yourself.
Anyway, as I told you yesterday, my son graduated from high school. I tried to enjoy it, and I really did. But there were some things that happened that really pissed me off, and I wondered: does anyone display proper manners anymore? What happened to common courtesy?
We got there early and found a good seat. We knew exactly where he would be sitting so we found a place in the bleachers where we could see him. The first thing I noticed was a woman placing her purse, jacket, and other items along the first row of bleachers to save them. OK, fine, people do that. But it was apparent that she was saving a lot of seats. (Keep in mind that each student was given four tickets.) As seats were filling up, she was still saving all those seats. At a couple minutes after noon, when the students were already starting their processional, about 10 people all walked in and sat down there.
That brings up another item. A lot of people were walking in at the last minute, and acted surprised when there were no seats right up front. Well, duh. Hello, this can’t be the first time you’ve attended a school function here (or maybe it is). You should know by now that all the good seats are gone at least an hour before the start. So don’t get this pissy look on your face when the lady in the front row says that she’s saving those 10 seats for someone else.
Those ten other people were all dressed in jeans and T-shirts too. Come on, your kid graduates high school once. Don’t you think you could put on a decent shirt and pants just once? I looked around me and I saw even more. Jeans, and not even nice ones. Dirty ones with holes in them, and shorts too. Baseball caps? Come on. At least make it a Cubs hat.
Now I understand why I saw some of the kids wearing shorts, T-shirts, sneakers, and flip-flops under their gowns. Everyone got written instructions on the proper attire for the ceremony, and those of us who signed up for the newsletter got them emailed to us as well. I don’t remember anyone ever having to tell me that you wear nice clothes to a formal ceremony. And nobody had to tell my son, either.
I’ve been to these ceremonies and awards before for both of my kids, and I know from experience that no matter how many times you remind the audience beforehand, some of them will act like idiots. The principal made a speech at the beginning, telling everyone that the tradition here is to have a solemn ceremony. He asked that any shouts or chants or any other celebratory displays should be kept private within the family setting afterward. That didn’t last long.
We didn’t even get through the letter C before it happened. At the reading of one of the students named Chavez, someone in the audience blasted an air horn and about a dozen people started cheering. An air horn! If ever there was a good reason to say, “WTF?” this was it. It’s one thing when you are all caught up in the moment and proudly shout when your child’s name is called, but to actually bring an air horn with you to graduation? That’s premeditated idiocy.
There were many more acts of total disrespect, but none was worse than the air horn. What was really sad was that we didn’t hear the next child’s name at all. And that happened again and again, every time someone’s family decided to do a long cheer. Yeah, I am very proud of my son, but I was proud of the child next in line too.
And since when did I become a combination seatback and footrest? The guy behind me (wearing denim shorts and a T-shirt, of course) had his knee in my back for two hours. The old lady in front of me (who came in at the last minute because her seat was saved for her) leaned back on my legs for two hours. By the time we got to the letter S, I was on the front edge of my seat with my legs turned to the side, and that wasn’t enough room for them.
Oh, there’s more. Two people who came late didn’t seem to want to climb up alllllll those stairs to find a seat, so they decided that they should sit at the bottom of the bleachers on the stairs. Two other people wanted to take pictures so they came down and sat on the stairs too. Now, I purposely sat next to the stairs about three rows up, so we could make a good exit and be high enough up to take pictures. Again, come early and get a good seat.
The last straw was when we left. They announced that we should all wait until all the graduates had left before exiting the gymnasium. Obviously there were several hundred deaf people in the audience, because as each row of graduates left, audience members left their seats and moved up to the next row closer to the door. Sheesh, people, do you have a hot date or something? Were you jonesing because we asked you to turn off your cell phone for two hours?
I’ll ask again: what happened to common courtesy and manners? I would say that it’s because we live around a lot of rich people with a sense of entitlement, but I’ve seen it when we lived in a poor town too. All I can say is that somebody needs to start teaching their children manners, but it’s not going to be easy to teach them something you never learned yourself.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Goallllllllllllllllll!
I’m not feeling very grumpy today, but I am feeling rather old. My son graduated from high school today. Up until now, I could still claim to have a bit of youth left, but now I am the father of a high school graduate!
I remember promising him, on the day he was born, that I would be there to take care of him and make sure that he got through high school and went to college. Today I made good on that promise and achieved that goal. I successfully kept us both alive long enough to see this day.
It wasn’t easy, and there were many times I didn’t think we’d make it. To start with, he and my wife almost died on the day he was born. He went into fetal distress and they had to perform an emergency C-section. His heart rate dropped nearly in half and the doctor thought she was going to hemorrhage. Luckily they both pulled through, and as I rocked him in the hospital nursery, I made him that promise.
The hard times were just beginning. There have been times of extreme poverty, and a lot of moving around looking for better opportunities. He has lived in over a dozen houses in his 18 years, and has never complained. Well, not very much, anyway. All along he has made the best of it and taken what life has given him. He will have an advantage over the spoiled brats he sat with today.
There have been a lot of good times, too. Another goal of ours was to take the kids to Disney World, and we accomplished that goal in 2000. I can still remember the look of sheer joy when we showed them the tickets and the plane tickets. We were able to get a lot of Internet “freebies” to get us there; there’s no way we could get all of that for free now. We had a great time and brought back a lot of memories.
The next big goal and promise was that they would have their very own home. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but when you have lived in someone else’s house all your life, it means a lot. We always rented because we didn’t have great credit, so we couldn’t get a mortgage. Since we had to rent, we could never save up enough money for that big down payment, so the vicious cycle continued. Once we moved up to the Chicagoland area, we made it a priority to buy a house.
It became even more of a priority after he told me something one day after school. Our landlord’s son went to the same school, and he told the other boys that he was my son’s “landlord.” That was incredibly demeaning and embarrassing. But my son shrugged it off and didn’t let it bother him. But it bothered me. I vowed on that day that I would do whatever it takes to get him his own room that he could paint any color he wanted. When the opportunity came that a lender would give us a mortgage, I didn’t care that it was a sub-prime. He and his sister have their own rooms, we can have a dog now, and nobody is their “landlord.”
I have always been proud of him, but never more proud than I was today. Some of the other kids were wearing shorts and tennis shoes and T-shirts under their gowns. Some of them made fools of themselves, and quite a few parents made fools of themselves (more on that in a later column). But he didn’t have to be told that he needed to get up, shower, shave, and wear a shirt and tie. He knows what it means to be a man and a good citizen, and he is going to be an example for his generation. When he runs for President, he already has one vote; mine. I hope he has yours too.
I remember promising him, on the day he was born, that I would be there to take care of him and make sure that he got through high school and went to college. Today I made good on that promise and achieved that goal. I successfully kept us both alive long enough to see this day.
It wasn’t easy, and there were many times I didn’t think we’d make it. To start with, he and my wife almost died on the day he was born. He went into fetal distress and they had to perform an emergency C-section. His heart rate dropped nearly in half and the doctor thought she was going to hemorrhage. Luckily they both pulled through, and as I rocked him in the hospital nursery, I made him that promise.
The hard times were just beginning. There have been times of extreme poverty, and a lot of moving around looking for better opportunities. He has lived in over a dozen houses in his 18 years, and has never complained. Well, not very much, anyway. All along he has made the best of it and taken what life has given him. He will have an advantage over the spoiled brats he sat with today.
There have been a lot of good times, too. Another goal of ours was to take the kids to Disney World, and we accomplished that goal in 2000. I can still remember the look of sheer joy when we showed them the tickets and the plane tickets. We were able to get a lot of Internet “freebies” to get us there; there’s no way we could get all of that for free now. We had a great time and brought back a lot of memories.
The next big goal and promise was that they would have their very own home. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but when you have lived in someone else’s house all your life, it means a lot. We always rented because we didn’t have great credit, so we couldn’t get a mortgage. Since we had to rent, we could never save up enough money for that big down payment, so the vicious cycle continued. Once we moved up to the Chicagoland area, we made it a priority to buy a house.
It became even more of a priority after he told me something one day after school. Our landlord’s son went to the same school, and he told the other boys that he was my son’s “landlord.” That was incredibly demeaning and embarrassing. But my son shrugged it off and didn’t let it bother him. But it bothered me. I vowed on that day that I would do whatever it takes to get him his own room that he could paint any color he wanted. When the opportunity came that a lender would give us a mortgage, I didn’t care that it was a sub-prime. He and his sister have their own rooms, we can have a dog now, and nobody is their “landlord.”
I have always been proud of him, but never more proud than I was today. Some of the other kids were wearing shorts and tennis shoes and T-shirts under their gowns. Some of them made fools of themselves, and quite a few parents made fools of themselves (more on that in a later column). But he didn’t have to be told that he needed to get up, shower, shave, and wear a shirt and tie. He knows what it means to be a man and a good citizen, and he is going to be an example for his generation. When he runs for President, he already has one vote; mine. I hope he has yours too.
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