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Sometimes I wonder what historians will think of us a thousand years from now. Will they marvel at our inovations? Wonder at how incredibly advanced we were for a “primative” culture? Will they hold us in honor for our sense of justice, and our love for truth?
Or will they shake their heads at our obsession with physical beauty, and roll their eyes at the fulitlity of our worship of fame?
What will they think when they see pictures of hair like this…
Or a person who is in danger of being convicted of a felony who smiles for her mugshot like this…
What about a GROWN MAN who is famous for pulling up his shirt so people can see his tummy, like this…
Ok…maybe I don’t get it because the only things I know about Paris Hilton or Jersey Shore are the images I am assaulted with every time I seek out actual news. (These people are in the news. I mean, isn’t that weird all by itself?) Maybe I am the weird one because my parents taught me that to be arrested is serious business, something one would cry about in a mug shot instead of strike a glamour shot pose. I guess I am the odd one, because when I was a kid and I lifted my shirt to show someone my belly, my mom said, “Sherri! Put your shirt down!” and I came to understand that to expose one’s stomach is socially unacceptable behavior in many envrionments.
Maybe it is just me…
As far as Polamalu’s hair- he says he wears it long to honor his Samoan heritage. I completely respect that. What I find bizarre is that Head and Shoulder’s shampoo has insured it with Loyd’s of London.
His hair. Insured with Loyd’s of London.
Really.
It is a weird, weird, world.
“Nothing good comes from laziness,” a more experienced parent once told me as she challenged me to teach my children the value of hard work.
I agree with her philosophy, but over the years another facet has been added to it for me. I have also come to understand that any time we choose the lesser version of ourselves because it is too hard to choose our best, it chips away at our hearts. We were created for the glory of God, and instinctively know when we abdicate excellence.
Excellence means not doing something grand necessarily but giving the best we have. It means leaving nothing in “storage” but walking away from a challenge devoid of strength and resources, to find ourselves filled with peace instead.
It is a life free of regret.
Not long ago, we watched “Facing The Giants” as a family. I loved that the coach challenged his team that although winning is good, the more important thing is to “leave it all on the field”.
That is what I want in the lives of my kids.
My oldest son is quite honestly the one who has taught me the power of this truth. He is the kid who is most skilled at “work avoidance” in our home. We have struggled, prayed, admonished, disciplined, and even ranted in frustration at times yet, lazy he remained. He is 15. We have only a few more years to sculpt a productive member of society, you know? Then, God’s answer came in an unlikely package- the US Army.
See, for a lazy kid, P.E. is a real downer, so when he found out he could avoid it by joining JROTC his freshmen year, he jumped (Well, not jumped exactly. That would take a TON of energy.) at the opportunity. He even joined the competition arm of JROTC, The Raiders.
During that first practice he must have felt like he had landed on a hostile alien planet. He texted me afterward to come get him, and “bring deodorant”. A week later, he began to seriously entertain the idea of quitting. He slumped in his seat on the way home- filthy, knees scraped, and drenched in sweat.
“I just don’t know if I can keep it up,” he said.
“What is the problem, honey? Are the upper classmen mean to you or is it just because it is so hard physically?”
“No one is mean,” he said. “I am just exhausted.”
“Well,” I said softly as I pulled into Sonic to get him something to eat. “Then, I think you should stick it with it. It won’t always be this hard. You will get stronger. More importantly though is the fact that if you quit, you will feel terrible about yourself.”
“Yeah,” he said.
It is still tough, but he hasn’t quit. What is more, even though I haven’t told him this, I have absolutlely no intention of allowing him to do so.
Last night, I looked at him and saw the first hints of muscle beginning to form, but more precious is the look in his eyes that says he is beginning to respect himself. He is realizing that he is stronger than he knew.
Oh, how I wish American parents could make peace with the truth that their children need to struggle while they still are still in the safe, encouraging haven of home. Without that struggle, they can never discover the glory that lies dormant within them.
The road to success leads through the valley of humility, and the path is up the ladder of patience and across the wide barren plains of perseverance. As yet, no short cut has ever been discovered.
by Joseph J. Lamb
I think I could dedicate an entire blog to the subject of parents gone wild. This was in my morning paper:
BREAKING NEWS: Parent arrested for assault after shoving, hitting coach at Heritage Middle School
By Donna O’Neil, Staff Writer
doneil@williamsonherald.com
The parent of a Heritage Middle School student has been arrested and charged with simple assault after a discussion about his son’s lack of playing time escalated into a physical altercation with the football coach Tuesday.
The man, 39 and reportedly of Franklin, is not being identified by this newspaper to protect the identity of the student, confronted Heritage Middle School’s head football coach Lee Nachand to discuss why his son wasn’t seeing as much playing time as the dad thought he should.
According to Williamson County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Hugh Tharpe, “the conversation escalated. The coach told the parent to make an appointment to discuss the issue, and the conversation escalated into a physical altercation.”
Tharpe said, “The man pushed [the coach] and then hit him in the face.”
Williamson County Sheriff’s Department Deputy and HMS School Resource Officer Jessica Richards arrested the man at his home in Franklin and charged him with misdemeanor simple assault. A $1,000 bond was levied. It is not known if the man was held or made bail.
The incident occurred on the school property, which is located at 4803 Columbia Pike in Spring Hill.
Of the incident, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Mike Looney said, “We are fully cooperating with the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department in its investigation into an alleged assault on one of our employees. We will not tolerate threatening behavior or actions toward our teachers and staff members.”
According to Williamson County Board of Education Policy 5.307 – Physical Assault on Personnel, it says, in part, “The Board will not tolerate physical assaults on any school personnel or Board member during their job performance at school or on duty for school activities away from school. Any such assaults should be reported to local law enforcement authorities by the individual and/or school principal, with charges filed as appropriate.
“Whenever such an assault occurs, the person(s) committing such assault will be personally notified that he/she shall be suspended from the regular school program and banned from attendance at any/all Williamson County School-sponsored events for one full calendar year, unless modified by the Director of Schools.”
Williamson County Sheriff’s Department provides School Resource Officers to each middle and high school throughout the county as per an agreement between the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department and the Williamson County Schools. SROs are onsite daily throughout the school year and as requested by principals for special events.
Posted on: 8/18/2010
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I used to buy my tomato plants at Lowe’s but this year I ordered some heirloom seeds and I’ll never go back to “Big Boy” and “Early Girl”. The difference between these gardening center standards and their ancestors is sort of like the day my dad brought home our first colored tv, or the day I received my first pair of glasses and realized that one could actually see individual leaves on the trees instead of a blurry mass of green.
I have fallen in love with Black Krim, Big Rainbow, Goldman’s Italian American, and Yellow Pear. My kids have discovered they love tomatoes too and each have their favorites.
Yum, yum, yum…
My middle daughter’s teacher arrived for our meeting with crutches and a leg brace.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Well,” she said. “You are not going to believe it. My son plays highschool football, and each year they have a fundraiser where the parents pay $25.00 and then tour the locker room, get a t-shirt, have the refs go over the calls, and dinner is served…that sort of thing. At one point, the coaches thought it would be fun to have us all go out on the field, get into our sons’ positions and run a few plays…tag, of course. My son is the running back. So, the quarterback handed me the ball, and I began to run down the field. Then, this mother comes out of nowhere and tackles me!“
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said. “This doesn’t sound real. It is more like something that would be in a sit-com or something.”
“No,” she responded. “She tackled me. I went down, and immediately, I knew I was hurt. The coaches all gathered around me, asking me if I was okay, but I did not want to draw attention to myself so I tried to act like I was alright. The woman kept saying, ‘Oh, I am so sorry. I don’t know what got into me. My adrenalin was just pumping, and you guys had already scored and I didn’t want you to score again…’”
At this point, my vivid imagination has painted the picture- two ladies are in their capri pants and flats, running down the field at a fundraiser when one tackles the other one. Really? I mean, what kind of craziness is that?
“What then?” I asked in astonishment.
“Well, they gave me ice, and I tried to go to the dinner, but I was in so much pain I thought I was going to pass out. A friend helped me to the bathroom and I called my husband to come get me. I went to the Bone and Joint Clinic yesterday, and they think my ACL is torn.”
That, my friends is a substantial injury. She could be in for surgery. I feel so bad for her. I wonder what it will be like for her as she sits on the bleachers at the football games with her crutches and brace and sees this woman walk by on her two good legs. I wonder how she will find the courage to be gracious and polite. I wonder what the woman will say when she sees her in that condition game, after game, knowing that her profound lack of self-control was the cause of so much pain.
Most of all, I wonder how our kids will learn self-control if we never model that for them, and what kind of nation we will be when the seeds we have sown into this generation bear fruit.
Whenever I find myself tempted to return to education, I am always cured by exposure to crazy parents. They are everywhere- raging at the park, scheming in the halls, slandering teachers in the carpool line, and generally exhibiting a frightening lack of self restraint.
A few weeks ago, I was minding my own business while swimming laps in my neighborhood pool. There are rules for the lap lane, you know. The primary rule is that if you at not swimming laps, you should not be in the lane. This is for the safety of everyone involved because it is remarkably easy for lap swimmers to accidentally run over or kick someone who wanders into the lane. At our pool, it is up to the 16 year old lifeguard to enforce this rule.
I had been in the lane for awhile swimming freestyle when I came very close to running into a man and his little girl who had chosen, out of a sparsely populated 25 meter pool, the end of the lap lane to practice her swimming.
It was obvious that this dad had marked his territory and had no intention of moving. I turned and swam to the other end of the pool as the lifeguard politely informed him of the rule and asked him to move out of the lap lane.
When I reached the other end of the pool, I turned and began the breaststroke which allowed me a brief view of the pool each time I took a breath. This is what I saw and heard each time I surfaced:
This huge 40 year old man was raging at the female teen lifeguard. He was shouting things like- “Where does it say on the wall I have to stay out of this lane?” “I pay my dues, I have as much of a right to be here as anyone else.”
He raged, and raged, and raged at this teen girl while his small daughter watched.
I was unsure what to do, and swam as close to the rope as possible to try to avoid him. Unfortunately, he chose to make his very dramatic exit from the lane just as I passed him.
He walked directly behind me and I felt my foot smack his soft belly. (This might be a good time to point out that my one and only strong skill as a swimmer is my powerful breaststroke kick.)
“Uh oh,” I thought. “I just kicked a Rottweiler.”
I stood up and spoke to him for the first time.
“I am so sorry,” I said. “I did not mean to kick you.”
He was consumed with rage which he then turned on me. He spat back hateful, vile words to my apology and eventually ordered me to not speak to him at all.
I swam on. Another mom at the pool went to him and told him to leave the lifeguard alone. He yelled at her too.
That’s about the time I realized this young girl, who was just trying to do her job, was sobbing in her chair.
And that is when I had enough of the bully.
I stood up in my lane next to him, pulled off my goggles and addressed him.
“Have you ever been a lap swimmer?” I asked calmly.
“No,” he sullenly shot back.
“That’s why you don’t get it.” I said.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said evenly. “You can just have the lane. It’s not that important to me, but you don’t need to be yelling at the lifeguard. She’s just a girl, and she’s just doing her job.”
“I didn’t yell at her!” he said.
I stared at him and said, “You are hateful, and you have no right to treat her with such disrespect.”
“Whatever!” he said.
I waded over to where the lifeguard sat shaking, tears rolling down her cheeks, with her hand pressed tightly over her lips. I reached up to take her bare feet in my hands said within the man’s hearing, “Honey, I am so sorry he treated you that way.”
“It’s not your fault,” she sobbed.
“I’m still sorry,” I said. “Baby, do you know what I tell my kids? I tell them that when someone is hateful to you, it says a whole lot more about that person than it does you. He is a hateful man who has never learned to control his emotions. He has a problem. It is not about you.”
I will be honest- I am no saint. I really, really wanted to punch him in the head. (And he was really out of shape , so I am pretty sure I could have taken him.)
But- I didn’t.
Let me make this clear- I wasn’t afraid of him. I kept control because that is the person I want to be. It is the seed I want to sow into my kids- Self control. No fear. Stand up for the oppressed. Make it you goal to go to bed each night with a clear conscience.
The lifeguard called her boss and her Dad. The bully realized reinforcements were on the way and slithered on home. I did some detective work, found out his name, and reported him to the homeowner’s association.
Most importantly, I told my kids about how a man ruined Mommy’s workout, made a fool out of himself in front of all his neighbors, and brought a girl to tears- all because he did not learn how to control his emotions as a child.
It is one lesson I hope they learn.
Post for Monday: “Parent’s Gone Wild, The Sequel” You are not going to believe this one…
I think shopping is her love language, especially when it is spoken in the dialect of shoes.
We both needed shoes, so we braved the chaos of the mall on a tax free weekend to hunt our prey. It took her forever to settle on a pair of bright yellow low-top Chuck Taylor Converse. It took me about five minutes to decide on a matching pair in electric blue (after she approved, of course).
As we walked out of the mall, hand in hand, she was beaming. Suddenly, she squeezed me tightly and said, “Thank you, Mommy! You filled my bucket!”
“Your bucket?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “My teacher says everyone has a bucket, and sometimes people dip into your bucket by being unkind. That’s why we have to fill up each other’s buckets.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “With kind words, doing nice things for each other, stuff like that.”
“Right,” she said.
“And shoes fill your bucket?” I said, chuckling.
“Right.”
As soon as we were in the car, we both shed our old shoes so that we could wear the new ones on our final errand before going home.
When we stepped into the next parking lot, she took my hand again.
“It is good we are wearing our shoes,” she said. “We match. That way, people know we belong together.”
I was stunned into silence.
“We belong together…”
My heart wrenched at the innocent expression of her longing for a visible proof for the world that I was hers, and she was mine.
There is no doubt that she carries with her many scars from spending the first two years of her life in an institution, but for her the issue of adoption has only rarely surfaced until now. Oh, I’ve talked to her about it but she has never seemed to struggle with it like her sister has.
Not long ago, I asked her if kids ever say anything to her about being adopted, or about being of a different race than her parents.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sometimes.”
“What do you tell them?” I asked.
“I say, ‘How would you like it if you were brown and your mama was white? How would you like it if you were adopted and people were saying stuff? I don’t think you are treating me the way you want to be treated, are you? So, why don’t you just worry about your own self?”
Stunned silence on my part once again.
But there in the parking lot, I saw into her heart, and recognized a loss I could do very little to remedy. No matter how much out hearts intwine she will always be black and I will always be white. Sadly, only the most sensitive people who come our way will see that we belong together.
I batted back the tears, and said softly, “That’s right. We belong together…”
“My shoes are yellow,” she replied. “Yours are blue. You are the sky. I am the sun.”
And we are. Black, white. Sky, sun. Mother, daughter.
Different? Yes, but each so utterly incomplete without the other.
I can’t remember the last time I was alone in this house. It feels both peaceful and…strange. I mean, I certainly like it, but there are so many things that have been waiting for this moment it is difficult to determine what to do first.
People very frequently ask me what I do all day when the kids are gone to school. Always, this is a person with only two children. I don’t know how to explain to these people what an overwhelming amount of work is continually waiting for me, so I generally stare at them for a moment and then mumble, “Oh, I manage to find things…”
And for the next few hours I will find things- boring things like laundry, cooking, and generally reigning in the chaos. I will do those things that no one appreciates unless they are undone. While I do these mundane essentials, I’ll pray.
I’ll pray for a lot of people, but I’m guessing I will spend most of those precious moments praying for my oldest son who is at his high school orientation entering for the first time the complex maze of freshman social interactions. I remember all too well my first day of my freshman year. I didn’t know it then, but it opened was the door to what would be the most desperate, dangerous year of my life. I was so full of hope that day, just like he is today. I can’t remember if I knew when the last bell rang that I was in for trouble, but it found me soon enough. Oh, how I want it to be better for him.
So, I bought the t-shirt, joined the PTO, and wrote my check to buy the pass that will allow him to go to any game, anytime, all year. I did what I could.
For now, all that’s left is to pray…
Oh. My. Gosh.
Wyclef Jean will run for president of Haiti. Here’s the CNN link:
She is a piece of work. Wild child. Spunk, flash, fierce affection, steadfast devotion, hot tempered, and sweet.
A friend of mine spent time with her in the orphanage when she was barely two. She came home from Haiti with a precious photo for me of my sweet baby. On the back she wrote, “She kicks. She bites. She scratches. She screams.” Turns out the orphanage environment was one of anarchy, and my tiny mocha child was The Lord Of The Flies.
She even had a bouncer, a much larger baby boy who would take toys from the other babies, whack them on the head with them, and then hand the toy over to my princess.
“You have your hands full,” my friend chuckled.
She was so right.
She came home at age two wearing a size three months. She spoke only two words in either language and proceeded to attempt to rule the entire house by shaking her finger and using those two words.
Not long after she came home, my husband and I stood in the kitchen watching her scowling at us over a plate of food that failed to meet her standards. I shuddered and said-
“Check out that dirty look! If she knew how to shoot us a bird, that tiny middle finger would be straight up.”
She’s a big girl now, but she’s still my baby. She doesn’t bite, hit, or scratch anymore, but she’s been known to deliver a mean elbow to the ribs. We are working on that.
She’s still a fireball, but she hasn’t shot us a bird.
Yet.
She likes to carry heavy stuff, and is offended if she is not allowed to grab the largest grocery sack, or suitcase. She will be the life of the party today on the bus and when it gets to school, that little second grader will walk in with the 7th and 8th grade girls like she owns the joint. (Much to the embarrassment of her siblings.)
She’s taught me a lot about directing a strong will. It is not for the weak or timid, I tell you. It takes endurance, tenderness, wisdom, consistency, and creativity.
She’s had a problem with honesty. I have addressed it in a myriad of ways. The newest approach seems to be the most effective. We have developed a mantra that we recite together at least once a day. It goes something like this:
“My name is Ro-Ro. I am an honest girl. I do what is right, even when no one is watching. I tell the truth. I hate lies. I will not be sneaky. I want to please Jesus, and my Mommy and Daddy too.
My name is Ro-Ro. I am an honest girl.
Hear me roar! Arrgggghhhhh!”
Don’t knock it. It’s working.
And nobody’s getting the bird.
