Category Archives: My life
I Can Suggest Where to Stick Your Labels
While in the car the other day, I was randomly scanning radio stations when I inadvertently heard a guy who, in my opinion, was giving questionable advice about how to wipe out bullying.
I didn’t give much credence to his advice for three reasons. First, I found him really annoying. That in and of itself really shouldn’t reflect on the validity of his advice – – but it did reflect on my opinion of him and everything he said. Secondly, he was talking in sound bites, and I’ve come to believe sound bites are specifically designed to prevent people from having to think. It allows them to repeat something they’ve heard as an absolute truth without knowing all the facts or putting it into context.
And the third reason?
His simple solution was aimed at changing the behavior of young people without addressing the bigger issue: the adults – – the people who are supposed to be the role models – – who are actually the worst perpetrators. We just don’t call it bullying.
Sometimes we call it politics. Sometimes we call it religion. And sometimes we call it patriotism.
But no matter what we call it, we are simply using acceptable terms to hide the fact that we are practicing the same behaviors as bullies: using labels to belittle those who threaten our beliefs and/or our lifestyle while using other labels to build ourselves up.
I know. I’ve been there. On both sides of that label making frenzy.
I’ve sometimes deemed people who consider themselves conservatives as being self-centered and dogmatic individuals who care more about their own bank accounts than they do about the welfare of others, especially those who are different or less fortunate. I’ve characterized them as people who frame every issue within the lens of their own life circumstances, struggles and successes rather than considering a broad range of factors.
That’s not always accurate or fair. But even though I know a lot of very intelligent, kind-hearted and well-intentioned conservatives, those labels are still there, niggling at the back of my mind and sometimes escaping my lips.
But then, I got labeled. I was told that liberals don’t believe in personal responsibility or living within their means and we don’t like rich people just because they are rich.
For me, nothing can be further from the truth.
But when it comes to labels, the truth doesn’t seem to matter all that much. What matters is they are having a very negative impact on our lives.
For those who want to control our votes, labels make a great tool for dividing us, swaying public opinion and preventing people from digging deeper into the real issues. When we are busy pointing fingers or ridiculing others as being wrong or misguided based on their label, we aren’t engaging in genuine discussions or discovering areas of mutual agreement and understanding. We are simply falling into a trap that’s been set out for us.
Lately, I’ve been trying to avoid that trap for very personal reasons.
I can’t tell my children that name calling and bullying are wrong if I’m not setting a good example. That doesn’t t mean I can’t still be opinionated or call out actions and behaviors that are wrong or against my beliefs. But that’s very different from labeling a person or a group of people with broad generalizations.
It’s not easy, but it just may be worth the effort. If nothing else, I feel like it’s helping me become a more patient person.
And that’s a label I’m willing to stick with.
Lesbian Is Not a Dirty Word
Relationships with other parents were so much simpler when my children were little. That’s primarily because we all had the same rules for our children: share with each other, don’t hit when you get mad and don’t throw temper tantrums, especially not in public.
But as our children get older, the issues become more complicated. And so do the relationships with other parents. Because the tougher the issues are, the more likely the adults are to have different values and opinions.
Take the issue of love and relationships.
My husband and I have always believed in tolerance and love. It doesn’t matter who you love. What matters is that you do love and, hopefully, are loved back. The power of love is so much greater than bigotry and hate, and we’ve tried to pass down that value to our children.
But not everyone shares that value. There are those people who believe that there is a right kind of love and a wrong kind of love. And they pass that value down to their children.
Unfortunately in that process, they try to pass their values down to other children too.
Take a recent incident in the neighborhood. Like so much neighborhood drama, it started on the school bus.
A neighbor boy called my daughter and her BFF lesbians.
My daughter was completely unaffected by the comment. She probably would have forgotten about it if her best friend hadn’t told her father, who completely freaked out. In fact, I wouldn’t have even know about the incident if the BFF’s parents hadn’t felt the need to include me in on their concerns.
“They were called a name,” the frantic father told me.
“What name?” I asked.
“I can’t say it in front of the girls,” he said. “When they are older and learn what it means, it will scar them.”
This seemed ridiculous to me since his daughter had obviously heard “the name” and had repeated it to him. But, my daughter, who never misses anything, reinforced the concept.
“I already know what ‘it’ means,” she said.
At this point, I was still completely unaware of what “it” was, but my daughter caught my confusion. “Lesbian,” she whispered.
The BFF’s father looked a bit confused then muttered, “Well my daughter doesn’t know what it means.”
Being raised not to think any of this was a big deal, my daughter immediately chimed in, “Yes she does. I told her.”
Here’s the deal. If my son or daughter even mentions an issue related to sex or sexuality, I make sure to contribute to the conversation. I want to ensure they get the facts. I’ve seen the research that shows the more accurate information youth have, the more likely they are to make safe choices when the time comes. Which means there are a lot of interesting, and honest, conversations in my house.
Apparently, those conversations aren’t happening in the home of my daughter’s BFF. Instead, she’s getting her sex education on the school bus.
After getting over his initial shock that my ten-year old daughter had told his ten-year old daughter what a lesbian is, the BFF’s father ranted on.
I only heard a small part of what he was saying. First, I knew I didn’t agree with his concerns. My only concern was that any of the children would use lesbian as a derogatory term. Of course, in the world of ten-year-olds, it was intended to be an insult to two girls who don’t yet shave their legs (which is apparently what the conversation was about). Secondly, I was thinking there are a lot worse names my daughter could have been called.
Regardless of my attention to his rant, my daughter WAS listening because she later wanted to know if lesbian is a dirty word. (My daughter’s new obsession is dirty words, and she’s hyper-vigilant as to anything that even has the appearance of being one.) And even though I reassured her that it wasn’t, she still seems very concerned. Over the last week, I feel like I’ve spent more time undoing the negative influence of the BFF’s father than I ever had to spend on conveying that love is ALWAYS a good thing.
“No,” I told her. “Lesbian is not a dirty word. Prejudice is a dirty word. Bigotry is a dirty word. Hate is a dirty word. But not lesbian. It’s a clean word.”
She seems a bit confused that none of the words I recited were on her list of dirty words, but I know that, through my persistence, they’ll land on her list eventually.
After all, I know a dirty word when I hear one.
It’s Not an Afternoon, or a Morning or Any Other Delight
I’ve never considered myself a snob. Not an “I want to feel more important than someone else” snob, or a food snob or a music snob.
Especially not a music snob. How could I be when you can find me listening to just about anything on my Ipod? And when I say anything, I really do mean anything. The music on my beloved Ipod ranges from musical theater to punk and just about everything in between.
But even I, the person who knows all the lyrics to every song in the musical “Oklahoma,” have my limits.
And they were reached this week at the local Sheetz station.
I admit that I generally enjoy the music playing over the speakers while I pump gas. It tends to be fairly retro, so I can happily sing along to the Eagles or Lynard Skynard or Bob Segar while ignoring the dollar amounts flying by on the gas pump.
I used to think it was a great marketing strategy dreamed up by someone half my age: “Play old-time music, and those middle-aged people with their gas-guzzling SUV’s will be so distracted they won’t care about the cost of gas. They might even buy a made-to-order food item because they aren’t paying attention to the cost.”
I was wrong. Either that, or someone who developed the playlist for Sheetz had absolutely no clue what they were doing.
Because this time, as I swiped my debit card, I heard the strains of a song that took me back – but not in a good way. Instead, it was more like a fingernails scraping on a blackboard way. (For those of you who don’t know what a blackboard is – it’s the prehistoric version of a smart board.)
At first, I couldn’t believe I was actually hearing it. “Gonna f ind my baby gonna hold her tight. Gonna grab some afternoon delight. My motto has always been when it’s right it right. Why wait until the middle of the cold dark night.”
Really? It was only 7:30 in the morning and I was taking my 13-year old son to school.
Instead of putting me in a good mood, the song was irritating me. Really irritating me. Because, even though I don’t like the song, I know the words. So when I went inside to buy a coffee, I actually found myself singing along.
Singing along to one of the most obnoxious songs in history.
I tried voicing my complaint about the music selection to the clerk, but she gave me a completely blank stare, ignored my complaint and asked if I needed anything else. When I told her that what I really needed was for her to change the music, I got another blank stare.
So I reverted to my only other option.
I posted my complaint about the music on Facebook.
By the time I got to the office, there were several comments about my Facebook post, including one trying to convince me the song was actually about the menu at a restaurant and not about an afternoon tryst. But others were eager to set that person straight. And while I appreciated the support, none of the comments were helping get the song out of my head. It was just there.. repeating over and over again.
And since I was suffering, I felt the need to make others suffer. So, I brought the song up on an office computer and made my co-worker listen to it.
Not only was she not happy, but my boss, who had been in an executive committee meeting, took that exact moment to leave the meeting and come into our office. He sauntered over to the computer and asked what I was doing.
What could I say? There, in all its glory was the Starland Vocal Band, singing about rubbing sticks and stones together and making sparks ignite. If the lyrics weren’t bad enough, the band members’ horrible hair and the bell-bottoms were.
My boss glanced at my computer and said, “Hey, I remember that kind of music,” then walked away.
I decided Facebook was safer. I clicked off the video and back onto Facebook. I decided to “like” the comment from the person who said she thought she saw a blog coming on.
And, to her credit, there was.
Not Just Another Walk in the Park
My dog Rodney on a daily walk in the park
I’ve got a habit.
It’s a habit that’s opened my eyes to a side of my town that many people aren’t even aware of. It’s a side of our town that some people look right through – maybe because they don’t want to see it or maybe because they simply don’t know what they are looking at. It’s a side of our town that shows disparity, inequality and absurdity.
But it’s there right out in the open – in the park down the street from my neighborhood. It’s a park where I’ve spent hours and hours of my time.
My husband calls my behavior obsessive. I call it maintaining a routine. But, whatever you call it, I am compelled to take our dog Rodney for a walk in the park at least once, and sometimes twice, a day depending on the weather and how busy my schedule is.
No matter what, we always go in the morning. Always.
On weekdays this means my alarm goes off at 5:00 and we’re in the park by 5:30. On weekends, we’re generally there a bit later.
But no matter the time, those visits to the park provide a glimpse into what’s going on in my town.
This time of year, it’s still dark when I get to the park. But that doesn’t bother me. I’m walking a big German Shepherd, and anyone would be crazy to mess with him. He’s a nice dog, but he isn’t exactly a fan anything, human or otherwise, that he sees moving in the dark.
Besides, just like I have a routine, so do others.
There’s the group of joggers that come running through every other day. There’s the two middle-aged women whose exercise routine is a little less strenuous and who simply walk through the park gossiping. There are always the other dog walkers, although I don’t think they are quite as committed to the whole dog walking thing as I am because they are only there sporadically.
And on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, there’s the group of bankers, accountants, lawyers and others being barked at by an ex-Marine putting them through “boot camp.” I’m always amused by the fact that these professionals pay to have someone tell them to run the bleachers and jump rope at the crack of dawn. But, then, I guess they probably wouldn’t get out of bed for the torture if they weren’t paying for it.
And as the sun begins to rise, I also see what other people have left behind. Clean-up crews haven’t arrived yet, so there’s always quite a bit left from the previous days’ activities and events. There are sweatshirts and shoes; I don’t understand how anyone can leave the park without shoes, but it happens all the time. There are balls and toys; I imagine some of those the parents were happy to leave some of those toys behind. And worst of all, there is litter – lots and lots of litter. Bottles, cans, cups, fast food wrappers, tin foil and popped balloons often lie on picnic tables and on the ground, usually near one of the dozens of trash cans that dot the park.
And, also as the sun rises, I see a man walking through the park. I never know where he’s spent the night, but I do know it’s not in the comfort of a warm home and bed. He’s always carrying his life on his back and something to read in his hand.
Just like many of us, he has his own morning routine. He settles at his favorite table at the shelter by the creek. He takes a water bottle from his backpack and lays his reading materials out before him. He then heads to the restroom, where I assume he grooms as best he can. And then he goes back to his table and reads. He is usually there for a few hours but is always gone by mid-morning. I don’t know where he goes, although at times I have seen him walking the streets of my town during the day.
I’ve come to think of this man as an acquaintance, even though I don’t know his name or his story. But, like any other acquaintance, we always greet each other. I’ve also come to respect this man – not because he is obviously surviving any way he can, but because he’s earned my respect.
Unlike many other patrons of the park, he alway leaves his space cleaner than when he got there. If that means throwing away his trash as well as the trash of others, he does. I’ve seen him do it many, many times.
It might seem like a simple thing, but it’s not simple at all to me. In fact, it seems very complicated.
Because people who can afford to leave behind shoes and sweatshirts have more than this man… a lot more. At the same time, many people who have sufficient material possessions are quick to judge and label those who don’t as lazy. Yet, to me, someone who throws away trash is NOT lazy, and someone who leaves it behind is.
That’s a puzzle I’ll have to ponder on yet another walk through the park.
Say Anything… Except…
I’ve never been good at hiding my thoughts and feelings.
NEVER.
When I was a child my mother used to call me Poker Face. Not because I had one but because I didn’t.
If I didn’t like someone or something, everyone knew it.
Not much has changed in the past few decades.
I’ve tried pretending. I’ve tried changing the subject. I’ve even tried wearing sunglasses during meetings so people couldn’t see my eyes roll.
But regardless, in the end I feel compelled to be genuine. In other words, eventually I always end up letting people know what I REALLY think.
Not that I’m trying to be mean. I generally trying to be helpful by being truthful.
The problem is, a lot of people don’t appreciate it.
I used to worry about that, but, like with so many other things that come with age, I’m over it.
Maybe that’s because I’ve had friends tell that they always know where they stand with me. And if they don’t want to know? Than they probably aren’t really my friend anyway.
Maybe it’s because when I give a compliment, it comes from the heart. It isn’t intended just to ingratiate myself to others.
Or maybe it’s because I’m afraid if I hold my true thoughts in, I’ll eventually implode. At least it feels that way.
But just because I’m o.k. with how I am, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to be who I am.
I’m constantly battling to survive in a world where appearances are often appreciated more than reality. Where people ask for feedback when all they really want is a compliment. And where people prefer to complain behind someone’s back while pretending everything is fine to their face.
But I understand you can’t change people or systems overnight. So all I can do is encourage people to at least be honest with me. Since I’m so blunt, I expect others to be the same.
If I ask for feedback, I want genuine feedback.. not just approval. If I say or do something ridiculous? Let me know. And if I ask if my outfit makes me look fat? Consult with my husband.
He’ll tell you the truth about how well I do when people are brutally honest with me.
Please Don’t Feed the Drama Queen
My house was invaded by bees this month. Well, according to my husband, they are yellow jackets. But to me? Anything that has stripes, wings and a stinger is a bee.
But regardless of their taxonomy, they invaded my basement and my life.
We eventually got rid of them thanks to our hero, Gary the Exterminator Guy. But, in the meantime, they created a bit of drama in the house.
I should have expected that. I live with a drama queen. The invasion of the stinging beasts simply emphasized that fact.
I warned my kids that the bees, make that yellow jackets, dying in the basement could still sting. My son, per normal, didn’t listen. Instead, he went barefoot into the Kid Cave, stepped on a yellow jacket and got stung. He then calmly came upstairs to tell me he’d been stung and his foot hurt. That was it. The incident was over, and he never mentioned it again.
My daughter, on the other hand, over reacted as usual.
She was already perturbed that I didn’t share her belief that the start of school also marks the beginning of Halloween season. She was insistent that the time to decorate had come. When I didn’t respond to her demands to bring up the tub of Halloween decorations up from the basement, she took matters into her own hands.
But, a dying yellow jacket had found the tub first. Keep in mind, it had died. It could have been easily flicked away. But, that would have been under normal circumstances when a drama queen wasn’t involved.
A drama queen changes everything.
My daughter ALMOST touched the yellow jacket, and the subsequent scream traveled farther than the recent earthquake that shook the East Coast.
I absolutely love my daughter, but about eight years ago I came to the inevitable conclusion that Shakespeare knew a girl just like her when he said “all the world’s a stage.”
On the positive side, there are benefits to being the mother of a drama queen. It not only helps you to be less reactive, it also helps you to completely ignore it.
Which is a good thing considering what’s going on in our country right now. We’ve got a lot of drama queens and people who encourage them. I’m not sure which is worse.
Anyone who has lived or worked with a drama queen, knows this is someone who blows things way out of proportion. A drama queen often views the world in absolutes. In short, drama queens are all about creating crisis out of any situation. And the more people pay attention, the more drama ensues.
If you pay any attention to the news, you probably think the world is being taken over by drama queens. If the invasion of the yellow jackets had made the news? I’m pretty sure there would be a world-wide scare and a call to exterminate every flying insect.
Sadly, I’m pretty sure that a lot of people pay more attention to drama queens than they are to the facts.
I’m not saying our country is perfect or that changes don’t need to be made.
But I am saying that using fear or emotional blackmail to drive the political process is completely ridiculous. Very few matters or situations are black and white, but drama queens love black and white.
They thrive on it.
But, as the mom of a drama queen , I’ve learned that one of the best way to deal with faux drama is to simply complicate matters. Add facts, variables and diverse opinions. Instead of creating drama, create genuine discussion.
And if the drama continues anyway? Simply do what I do with my daughter – ignore it.
I’m pretty sure it works with most drama queens.
I’d like to create some more buzz about the issue. But, the moment, I’ve had enough of both buzz and drama.
Is that a Compliment or Are You Just Trying to Confuse Me?
I used to think a compliment was a compliment.
Of course I also used to think that life was like a math equation.
That is, I thought that if you did the right thing, then good things would happen to you. And, if you were greedy, mean or cold-hearted, then bad things would happen. In other words, in the balance sheet of life, everything would add up.
I also believed that if you watched what you ate and exercised on a regular basis, there was no reason you shouldn’t be able to fit in the same sized jeans you wore in high school.
I was clearly delusional.
Now that I’m older, I’m a bit more realistic.
I also find myself analyzing every compliment I receive.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who thinks all compliments are back-handed or have some hidden meaning.
I’ve simply found that compliments say more about the people who give them than about the people who receive them. They provide great insight into motivations and personalities.
For example, I used to go absolutely crazy with friends who would criticize people behind their back only to make insincere compliments to their faces.
Not that I necessarily felt the need to be rude to people whom I disliked or didn’t respect (at least most of the time), but I certainly didn’t feel the need to lavish them with phony compliments.
But, to be fair, that’s a trait that can actually be very beneficial. Personally, my lack of it has cost me dearly at times. Because what I figured out was that the people who give such compliments simply want to keep the peace. It’s more important to them than being self-righteous. That’s very admirable.
Not that I’ve been able to change my ways all that much, but at least I understand.
What I’m still trying to understand are the compliments that come from my own family.
I didn’t grow up in a family that threw compliments around. And I didn’t marry into one either.
That’s not a bad thing at all, because the compliments that I did receive are definitely memorable…not necessarily ones to treasure.. but definitely memorable.
Take my husband.
Nearly 20 years ago, before we were married, he told me that I was “a worker.” He then explained. “That’s the highest compliment you could receive from my mom’s side of the family. ”
The effect of this compliment was short-lived when I realized that, while his grandmother may have appreciated “a worker,” my husband had higher regard for people who can sit back, relax, enjoy life, and watch the same episodes of a favorite television show over and over and over.. AND OVER again. Based on that, I’m surprised he married a woman who has a hard time sitting still for five minutes and feels guilty if she’s not accomplishing something 24 hours a day.
More recently, I was confused by what, I think, was intended as a compliment from him.
We were discussing why married couples complain about their spouse’s personality traits. My comment was that personality traits don’t change no matter how long you are married, so they shouldn’t have gotten married to begin with if they were that annoyed.
This led to the question as to whether people can and do change and inevitably to my asking “have I changed?”
My husband thought about it a minute, then told me I had. When I asked how, he said “You’re more mature.”
To put this in perspective, my husband has complete disdain for women whom he considers “immature.” I’m not exactly clear what his exact definition of immature is, but I think it has something to do with people who get upset when the world doesn’t revolve around them, or who expect life to constantly be exciting or who put their own wants and desires above all else. That’s based solely on my keeping a list of all the people, mostly women, who he has identified as “immature.”
Logically, one would think that the definitions of mature and immature would be exact opposites.
But, in this case, I’m not so sure. Because after considering if I had ever been one of those women, I realized that, for the most part, I hadn’t been. So his definition had to mean something else. But when I asked him what he meant, he couldn’t explain, and I was a bit worried.
Maybe because when I hear the word mature, I immediately picture a matronly woman buying clothes in the “old lady” section of the local department store.
I’m not there.. yet.
So, I gave up trying to figure out exactly what my husband meant and just decided to take it as a compliment. After, all, as I said before, compliments say a lot about the person who gives them. And my husband is a great judge of a character, so he had to mean something positive.
At least I’m pretty sure.
My Bookshelf is Going to the Dogs
Despite the image I lamely attempt to portray, I really do care what other people think of me. I care a lot. And there is nothing I hate more than disappointing people who have invested something, whether it’s their time, money or emotion, in me.
Unfortunately one of my greatest talents (or lack of talent depending on how you look at it) is my inability to be fake, or as I’ve been told many, many, many, many, many times (can we say almost on a daily basis?), I’m extremely blunt.
Combine those two personality traits, and you have a recipe for disaster when it comes to any gift-giving occasion.
But here’s the deal. People who know me well enough to give me a gift should also know my quirks. And one of my biggest quirks is an aversion to any book or movie about animals.
Unfortunately, people seem to forget this, because I have enough animal books to fill an entire bookcase. Logically, the gifts make perfect sense. I am passionate about animals, particularly dogs, and I also love to read. So, in a rational world, a book about animals seems ideal.
The problem is I’m not exactly the most rational person in the world, especially when animals are involved.
I think my issues began when I was as a child, and almost every animal story ended with the animal dying. And the movies weren’t any better: Sounder? Where the Red Fern Grows? Old Yeller? The heroes always died in the end. And, simply put, that left me with emotional scars.
My husband has tried for years to get me to watch animal movies. “The animals don’t die anymore,” he’s told me. “They almost always have happy endings now.”
I just can’t bring myself to believe him. I simply don’t trust Hollywood. And for good reason.
While I never read Marley and Me (although I have a hardback copy that was a gift from my mother if anyone ever wants to borrow it), I refused to see the movie because I was
pretty sure it would end with tears. I’ve been told that it does. I’ve also been told the book is better than the movie,and I should read it anyway.
But despite that, I don’t care because I’m pretty sure the dog still dies. And I refuse to have to deal with the grief issues.
I’ve had to deal with my own dogs dying. I think that’s enough. I really don’t need to grieve for a dog I’ve never met.
My husband doesn’t understand why I’m so adamant about the whole “animal movie/book” thing. After all, I read mysteries, and people always die in those books. The same is true with the television shows and the movies I like.
I try to explain to him the difference between animals and people dying, but he just doesn’t get it. He simply fast forwards to his own death and tells me that I probably won’t grieve for him like I’ve grieved for our pets. He even thinks that, at his funeral, I’ll be preoccupied worrying about how I’ll fit walking the dog into the chaos his death has created.
He’s probably got a point there.
But his accusations have got me thinking. Maybe I should address my aversion to the animal movies and books. My concerns are limiting my entertainment options. Also, my behavior reminds me a bit of my former neighbor, Jimmy.
Jimmy absolutely adored my dogs and welcomed them into his home. But Jimmy also refused to get his own dog because he’d had one once, and it died. He simply didn’t want to have to go through that grief again. I was always sad at how much love and joy Jimmy was missing for fear of heartache.
- Gusty 1994 – August 2010. I still miss him.
While I completely understand how difficult losing a canine family member is, their deaths are a small price to pay for all the pleasure they bring to a home. Maybe the books and movies are the same. Maybe the sad endings are worth it.
So I am now re-considering the whole issue, and I may even pick up one of those many unread books on my bookshelf. Maybe. But it’s going to take some time to get up my nerve.
In the meantime, if you are thinking of sending me a gift, just remember that you can never go wrong with jewelry.
Real Men Wear Aprons… and Sometimes Even Tights
Ken Bartlett
I’ve wished for a lot of things in my life. But the one thing I don’t remember ever wishing for was a different dad.
Admittedly, there were times I wished I belonged to a different family, but I’m pretty sure even in those fantasies, my dad was still around.
That’s because I always needed my dad to be around.
I still do.
My dad was never the most macho dad. Or the most protective dad. Or the coolest dad.
But I have absolutely no doubt that God intended for him to be my dad, because there is no other man who could have taken that job on and still come out sane on the other side.
And yes, he is still sane. At least he was last time I talked to him, although he likes to pretend otherwise.
But then, my dad has always enjoyed pretending, which is why I always appreciated him so much.
Sometimes my dad would pretend that he didn’t care about my Mom’s strict rules about food. My overly health conscious mother would have been shocked had she known about the secret stash my dad kept and would sneak to my brother and me on special occasions.
Sometimes my dad would pretend that he wasn’t as excited as we kids about a new toy, like when he secretly bought our family’s first color television while my mom was out-of-town. We were a one, black and white television family and that time, and he did do his best to hide the new TV from my mother as long as he possibly could. And, as I recall, a great deal of time passed before she actually discovered our new prized possession.
And most importantly? When I was a teenager? My dad would pretend that he didn’t see and know all the things I shouldn’t have been doing.
But my Dad also liked to pretend even in non-real life situations. Dad has always loved being on stage. One of my first memories is of my Dad playing Winnie-the-Pooh. But in general, he played more mature roles. . .even those that required him to stretch a bit. Literally.
When he took a role in Romeo and Juliet, he actually had to wear tights. He’s the only Dad I know who ever wore tights. And more importantly, he wore them so well,I’m probably the only teenage girl who wasn’t embarrassed that her father was wearing tights.
But then again, I don’t remember being embarrassed by my father, with the exception of one significant event—when my dad took early retirement to avoid requiring our family to move (again), when I was a teenager. At the time I resented the fact that, while in all the other houses in our neighborhood dads got up and went to work, in my house, it was my mom who went to work.
Yet through all this resentment, I was also grateful.
I was grateful that my dad was always interested in whatever interested me. I was grateful that my dad attended whatever event I was part of. And yes, I was grateful that my dad was doing the cooking instead of my mom.
Actually, grateful doesn’t even begin to cover my appreciation that he took over that chore.
But, here’s the thing about my dad, and I say this with absolutely no disrespect to my mom, he made the better mom.
When I was sick? My dad was always the one who was up all night with me. When I upset? My dad always sensed the problem and dealt with the situation in a sensitive manner. When it came to building my self-esteem? My dad who knew just what was required to build it up. And when it came to worrying about my brother or me? Yes… my dad always put a lot of energy into that too.
But the most important thing my dad ever did for me? He demonstrated what real man, and a real husband, is.
Granted, my husband would never be caught dead in tights.. or an apron for that matter… but other than that? He’s got a lot of the same great qualities. And for that I’m thankful to my mom for marrying my dad and I’m thankful for my dad for just being himself.
Happy Father’s Day!
Just So You Know 