Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too
2005-03-07, 1:14 p.m.

I just returned home from my first neighborhood Bible study. It was nice getting to meet some new ladies of da hood, and the study itself is interesting. We�re doing Shepherding A Child�s Heart, which has some good overall parenting questions. The other ladies, although similar in age to yours truly, all have leetle keedles. Babies. I felt like the Old Voice Of Experience on several questions, because I�ve been there done that bought the t-shirt, while they are still busy changing diapers and making bottles and haven�t had to face the issues.

One of the questions involved what we want for our children�s future, and unanimously it revolved around the children being successful. Then you have to define �success�. I�ve found that flexibility is the key. Like them, Hubby and I had grand ideas about colleges and careers and Thou Shalt Not Date Until Thou Art 30 kinds of things. As the years go by, success is defined more like no jail time, passing grades on the report card, and limited trips to the emergency room. Some may call it dropping your standards, I call it a reality check. Give the kids the tools they need to be self-sufficient, honest, trustworthy, responsible, and independent, and success will surely follow. More importantly, it will be measured by your child and not by your own artificially inflated sense of value. If your kid is a disappointment to you because he/she didn�t get into an Ivy League school, then you�re the one with a problem, not your child.

A pet peeve of mine these days is all the self-esteem crap. We mustn�t damage a child�s fragile ego. We must not post honor rolls because to do so would be a crushing blow to the average students. We must make sure everybody has a turn, there are no winners or losers, even out the playing field. Malarkey. What we REALLY need to do is to teach our children how to lose. Losing is a fact of life, and to handle it with grace and benefit from the experience is a learned skill. No one is born being a good sport. What our nation is breeding nowadays is a mass of whiners, expecting that once they emerge from their feel-good cocoons that the world is going to hand them wealth and power and responsibility because to do otherwise just isn�t possible. We are dooming a generation to failure and permanent immaturity. Our schools still post honor rolls, and my kids haven�t made it a single time. Are they scarred for life? Of course not. If they want to make it, then they have to work harder. The work ethic is what will breed their success. You reap what you sow.

Daughter sowed and reaped a fun evening out on her first date, the school dance with Anthony. Yes she�s only 12, but the term �date� meant that Anthony�s mom drove them both to the dance, and I was a chaperone. No need for her to sit home until menopause under those circumstances. They ran through the school in hormonal herds, the boys full of false bravado and the girls all giggly to be away from the Br@tz dolls for awhile. They ate mountains of pizza and crammed in for photo sessions by the baker�s dozen. No fights, no uproars, just plenty of happy kids getting their first big taste of adolescence.

Here�s Daughter (getting the giggles) and her date:

And here they are, with Daughter getting goofy:

A couple of boys approached Daughter and Anthony at the dance and asked Anthony, �So how did you end up with the hottest girl in school?� Daughter has no self-esteem problem now. Her father, conversely, has become very insecure. This just may have been her first and last date, ever.

Hubby may be the one in Chicago this week, but the windy city is right here. This morning it was 60-something degrees and sunny. 1pm, it�s freezing and rainy with hurricane-force wind gusts. This morning it was too warm for a jacket; now I�m about to don a sweatshirt. Migraine to follow, no doubt. No aura yet. Yet.

Yet.

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