Just a Thing or Two I've Learned

When I first had children, I thought I knew all I needed to know about raising them, and all I needed to teach them. Boy howdy, was I wrong. My first meeting with an infant's ear infection taught me that. However, I have learned a thing or two since then, and if I could go back, I'd take the time to write a letter to my infant, to be read by them when they are older. Since I can't do that then, I'll do it now, and maybe they'll know it's meant from my heart. Without further ado, here goes nothing:

Dearest baby,

I have a few things I'd like to promise you.

1. I promise I'll always do my best. I also promise there will be times that won't be enough. You'll survive.

2. I promise you will hurt sometimes. I promise I'll be there to kiss your boo-boos, hold your hand, and give you good advice. I also promise there will come a time you resent that, and do what you want anyway. You'll learn.

3. I promise that I will yell, at the top of my lungs, when you make me really mad. I promise you'll hate me for it, for a while. Someday you'll understand why I did it.

4. I promise that there will be days when you wish you could be part of your best friend's family instead of your own. I promise I won't let you, at least not forever. Because God gave you to us for a reason, and because you are part of this family , you are who you are, and someday you'll realize that.

5. I promise that there will be things that you feel like you can't tell us. You should tell us anyway, because we, of all people, are the only ones anywhere who actually have your best interests at heart.

6. I promise that I will snoop in your room, read your diary, listen to your phone calls, and restrict your privledges when necessary. I promise you'll hate me for it. I also promise that someday you'll understand why, thank me for it, (at least in spirit), and do the same to your own kids.

7. I promise I will love you like no one else except God Almighty himself. I promise I will die for you if necessary, sacrifice my own food, money, time, and health. I also promise you won't ever, ever, understand this kind of love until you have a child of your own. It's o.k. I understand.

Someday you will too.

Love, Mom

The High Cost of Everything

My daughter wants to be a surgeon. She dreams of finding a cure for cancer. And you know what? She has the intelligence to do it. All she needs now is a college education.

I wanted to go to college right out of high school, so I applied to a local university, and got accepted. Without going into the reasons why, I wasn't able to go. Eventually, I met and married my wonderful husband, and we started a family, and life happened, and I never really got there. I have a couple credits from classes taken for my job, but not a real cohesive education.

My husband also never went to college. Life sort of got in the way for him as well.

Over the years we've toyed with going to school, part time, or quitting our jobs and going full time, but it has just never really happened.

So when our daughter began to show signs of wanting to go to college, we were thrilled. She has the brains, and the desire. But what she doesn't have is the money. I read recently that most doctors graduate from school with over $150,000 in student loans, and many of them are never able to fully repay those loans.

I've been told that it's possible to work your way through college, and to an extent I agree. But to be a doctor, there is a certain point where you have to devote all of your time to just learning.

The ideal would be for us as parents to be able to give her the money to finish her schooling at that point, but unless we win the lottery, that is never going to happen. If all of our bills were paid off and we had a years worth of food in the pantry and could devote every dollar of our earnings to her education, it still wouldn't be enough.

So while we worry about the cost of gas for our cars and the cost of groceries going up, and try to plan for retirement, and try to continue to buy everyday necessities, we also worry about giving our children the best possible future we can. Even though we know that probably means telling her to get a good job, save as much as possible, and hope for a good scholarship.

I hope her dreams hold out as long as ours have.

F-Dash-Dash-Dash

Yesterday, as we were going about our business, my daughter, in the course of describing to me how angry she was at something random that had happened, dropped the f-bomb. You know, the "queen mother of all bad words". Yes, that word. Unlike when my first child first said such a thing in front of me, I simply told her to watch her language, and we went on with our day.

This is not how things were when I was growing up. My mother always told me that if I didn't start cussing, there would never be a day when I had to try to stop. My father, who knew how much my mother hated cussing, tried his level best not to cuss in front of us, but he merely ended up sounding like Daffy Duck. ("Racka-Sacka-Frackin-Nacker!") It became something of a game to us, betting on how long he could go without saying an actual cuss word, and was an endless source of amusement to us as children. Even my mother can be driven to an occasional "crap" when she is really angry.

I managed to go without cussing as a habit until I was in my late teens, when driving became a daily necessity, and my inner road rage emerged. Now, having lived in Chicagoland all of my adult life I, like all other suburbanites, drive under the illusion that my driving is better than all of those around me, and every other driver is a complete and total moron who deserves to have every cuss word in the book tossed at them in multiples, along with the occasional finger.

But I try not to have any illusions about my parenting skills, and I recognize that even if I and their father never uttered a single cross word, our children would almost certainly begin to use those words as they venture out into the world.

I attempt to keep an open mind, and to teach them that there are better choices of words to express themselves, and there are situations in which a cuss word might be appropriate, and other situations in which one certainly should not use such words.

For the most part I think I've succeeded. My children can have an entire conversation without using a cross word, and they know not to say certain things in, say, church. So I think they'll be alright.

At least she didn't blame it on Shwartz. (nod to the movie, "A Christmas Story" )