Jump off at your own risk...

I've had the flu since Sunday night. This is no fun since the few pills that allow me to feel better are the same ones that make me want to curl up in bed and sleep it all away. If only that was possible maybe I would get better quicker, but so far the only day I've taken off for this dreadful illness was Monday. At midnight on Sunday I started to cough and eventually dragged myself out of bed to find my keys and unlock the safe in which I now hide any medications from my impulsive older son. In fact, in the safe I found some cough syrup I had confiscated from his room several months ago and I consumed the recommended dosage. Nothing, one hour later I was still coughing in what seemed like a constant bark from a dog behind a fence being teased by a conceited cat that knows he is unreachable. Once again I dragged my now even more tired body out of bed in search for some quick remedy to stop my incessant cough. This time I went for the sure kill and took two Benadryl. I figured if I could dry out the post nasal dripping and fall asleep in the same effort, my prayers would be answered. Sure enough, by 3:00 a.m. I was out like a log. When my alarm went off three hours later reminding me that it was time to get ready for work, my body was too over medicated to care enough to do anything other than press the snooze button over and over again until it was obvious that I was not going to get up. One extremely short email to my boss saying "Sending you a note to let you know that I am sick and won't be able to come in to work today..." and I slipped under the covers shivering for the next eight hours because of a fever that partnered up with my soar throat to make sure I could recognize the symptoms of truly being sick.

The next day my throat still hurt just as bad, but at least the fever seemed to stay at bay while the four hour effects of the Tylenol Cold pills consumed did their job, so I went to work. The good thing about coming to work while I am still sick is that nobody wants to catch my cooties, so they don't come into my office with too many requests. The bad thing about coming to work while I am sick is that all day I am constantly looking up at the clock on my wall wondering how much longer I plan on torturing myself in my office. The no dumb requests meant that I was able to get a lot of work done even while feeling like crap, so I decided to torture myself again today and come back in so that I could catch up with a few other things that needed to be finished this week. Tomorrow is "Fat Bird Day" or Thanksgiving, so I already asked for Friday off so that I can give myself a real chance to get better from the flu. There is nothing less rewarding than finally having a holiday off from work and not really being able to enjoy it at its fullest because of being sick. OK, enough of this talk, let's get into the true reason for this post, an update on what is going on with me and my sons.

The results of the California High School Proficiency Examination taken by my oldest son a bit over a month ago came in. As I suspected, he passed without any problems and has now earned the legal equivalent of a high school diploma in the state of California. I guess I should be happy for him since this means that even though he has had some shaky times while attending high school, at least now he will be able to apply to some local colleges and continue his higher education. How I should feel and how I really feel are two very different emotions. The reasonable and rational side of my brain appears to be in conflict with the emotional side. My mind is in conflict because even though this achievement is most definitely an indication of his advanced intelligence, I feel as if he is cheating life by not allowing himself to experience all that there is to learn from attending high school at the same pace as his piers. Interestingly, even though he did drop out of school when he took this test, all of his friends are constantly coming over to our home after school to socialize. In effect he has managed to cut out the academic experience without breaking the social link.

When I was in high school, I too took an accelerated pace in getting out and heading towards college. After taking classes for several summers I advanced enough in credits in order for me to graduate a year early. I have always regretted that decision since even though at the time I did not feel the need to participate in a senior year of high school, later in life I found myself wishing that I would of done so. For me college was a wonderful experience and I loved every minute of the time I spent getting a higher education. However, I believe that the final year of high school had lessons that I needed to learn which I cheated myself out of because of my rush to get into college. Of course college offered me a great deal of exciting challenges so at the time I could not truly appreciate what I had missed by rushing into it so quickly, but later on I did find myself wondering why I was in such a hurry to grow up.

In the midst of it all I see my oldest son making so many of the same mistakes that I made, yet no matter how hard I try to communicate with him what I have learned, he seems just as I did at his age convinced that he knows what is best for him. I have written about this in a previous post, and I know that I have to allow him to make his own path regardless of my ability to predict or anticipate the consequences of his mistakes. There really is no way around this reality since growing into a good man is much like making a battle worthy sword. In order to make a strong sword that will not break while in battle, the sword maker needs to expose the metal alloy to extreme temperatures until it glows dangerously red. He then uses a heavy hammer to pound it with great skill and force against an anvil slowly creating the desired shape. In between heating and hammering he also dips it in cold water forging the metal so that it retains its strength. Over and over again this process is repeated until the correct shape and strength for the sword is obtained. Still, at this point the weapon is both dull in luster and sharpness, so the task remains for the creator to masterfully grind the edge against a stone to turn it into an effective weapon and later spend hours on end polishing it to make it shine beautifully. Skipping any of these steps will not give the same results in the end. Not allowing the metal to be exposed to extremes only results in the creation of a weak weapon. Without sharpening the sword is much less effective. If the sword is not polished, it still has the same value in battle, but the warrior might not carry it with as much pride.

Only time will tell if the path taken and the lessons learned by my sons will be enough to make good men out of them both. Every once in a while I catch myself wanting to spare them some of the struggles that I can clearly see them walking right into in their lives. Because of my love for them I hate the idea of them getting hurt, so I am constantly on guard making myself available in case they need my assistance. As their father I feel obligated to set rules and boundaries so that they don't fall off the side of life's healthy boat. Yet it almost always seems out of my hands when they decide to jump ship and try to swim on their own to a shore that is just too far out for their abilities. What I have learned is to stop trying to prevent that from happening because it becomes increasingly frustrating and not doable. Instead I've chosen to navigate my life around theirs paying close attention to when their head drops under water for too long so that I can reach in and give them a hand to stay afloat. However, at this point in their lives the most important lesson I am trying to teach them is that I cannot be there to keep an eye on them 24 hours a day. If they jump off and swim to far away from my life's boat, they might find themselves all on their own.

Dad

It's a pretty big playground!

Over 35 years have passed since I was in 6th grade, yet still so many memories of those days are vivid in my mind as if they happened just a week ago. How does the process of archiving some memories from my life and deleting others work? What is the selection criteria that generates a special place for some faces, yet allows others to fade away almost instantly. I attended a Catholic School, and to my recollection most grades were always divided into three classrooms in which there was rarely more than 30 students in each. I cannot remember the exact number but at the most we never had more than 90 students enrolled per grade. A while back I took the time to see how many names of my childhood classmates I could remember. Of the probable 90 faces I could only remember the names of 60, which included my own. From this I might concluded that my mind is no more than 66 percent effective at archiving and later retrieving memories from this part of my life. There is a probable 34 percent content which is either lost, heavily guarded, or never got filed in my head in the first place. I am sure that if I went to my mother's home and pulled out one of my yearbooks, my immediate response would be "oh yeah, I remember him or her!" Interesting how my mind does this magical trick of hiding previously relevant information as easily as laying a dark blanket over my memories.

I extended the experiment by trying to account for how many of their faces I could remember while reading their names from the list I had previously made. However, I soon realized that this was not a challenge since as soon as I would say their names a quick visual image would pop up in my head to match. Apparently, if I am able to remember their names, then I have a 100 percent ability to remember what they looked like too. I am curious to discover if the same holds true if someone would mention a name which I had originally not remembered on my own. Will I still have the same visual experience of remembering their face too? After all, it is kind of embarrassing when I have attended a class reunion and one of my childhood friends walks straight up to me and asks "remember me?" just to find myself digging deep into my head and discover I did not file their name or image anywhere for instant access at the time. In all fairness, those "Hello My Name Is" sticky tags should go accompanied by a picture of the individual when they were younger because people can change a lot in 30 years!

I got an email yesterday from a childhood friend that I had not heard from in over 30 years. As I read her note, instantly my mind flew back in time and her super cute face popped up as a reminder of someone I not only was close to, but also had a boyish crush on for a while. This might not mean a lot since I think I might of had a boyish crush on almost every single girl in my class at one point or another. However, her memory is more special to me than just that of a crush. With the image of her beautiful face and long dark hair I also filed a memory of someone that was kind, real, and very nice to me. God only knows how many times I might of annoyed the life out of her for reasons that I now cannot even remember, but on my end, in my mind, she holds clear in my memories as someone with a great heart, a beautiful personality, and all the makings of a lovely human being. After I finished reading her email, my mental conclusions from one single note were that I had accurately filed away the precise description of this person. That to me my dear friends is amazing! How in the world was my young, immature, and mostly ignorant mind able to file such a precise collection of attributes for so long?

I think I might have an answer to the above question. I want to be fair and quickly make the statement that every rule has its exceptions, so what I am about to say does not apply 100 percent of the time. I have learned with time that who we are as children, and who we will become as adults could be much different in the end. Boys and girls have a chance to grow up and make of themselves better or worse individuals than their childhood persona. I for one would like to think that my days of pulling hair and making silly faces are no longer part of my once childish rituals to get the attention from the opposite sex. Equally, I sure hope that my caring more about me than others phase is also a thing of the past. However, I also have learned that deep rooted into our persona we have certain qualities that stay true with us throughout our entire life. In essence, a good heart is a good heart. Youth in itself does have a special kind of innocence that seems to fade away with life experiences, but the sentiment, the emotional goodness of an individual keeps well as they age. I feel strong about this concept on the positive side, yet I am not totally convinced it is true on the negative end of the emotional spectrum. I say this because what might seem like a bad, cruel, or mean hearted child could simply be a reflection of their immaturity and lack of life experiences at the time. If this is true, then these other children that might not project a wealth of emotional goodness could actually mature and eventually find a much more centered personality as they grow up.

These are some of the things that I reflect upon when I am given the opportunity to play catch up with dear childhood friends. In a simple email I sometimes am able to find hours of reflection. The way people write, the things they say, and how they respond to your own inquiries, it all adds up to so much more than words and sentences and answers. In almost everything that we do there is usually something meaningful to think about. As a father, I love being able to rediscover childhood friends and memories because they sometimes serve me as a guide into a lot of my own children's personalities. My life alone is not enough, it does not have all of the clues and the key that I need to be able to find and unlock the vault that contains the answer to figuring out my children. There is a lot more to it than just me and them because the degrees of freedom that affect human behavior are much greater than what resides in my own home. As I have heard before, the world itself is a very large playground. It makes absolutely no sense to stay indoors instead of coming out to play.

Dad

The angel in my closet...

I have been blessed with so much in my life that it would be totally ignorant of me not to recognize that fact. Regardless of my present situation, when I pause to take a look back at almost any instant in time during my past, I am always able to find something very good in my life that overwhelmingly outweighs anything bad. It is as if my life in itself is fueled by amazing moments of love, caring, and understanding that always tip the balance on the side of my well being. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, which is completely normal and to be expected, since death, heartbreaks, and the ever so frequent bad day do make their way into my life like it does for everyone else. However, if I was able to create a point system which gave positive values for good moments, and negative values for the not so good ones, by the time I added them all up surely I would have a healthy jar of positive values as the total balance.

In the midst of a bit of self reflection I wrote a post last Friday that obviously opened the door of my closet allowing those interested to walk in to take a peek at how I was feeling on that particular day. I tend to discover a lot about myself and my emotions when I write this particular kind of post. In fact, it is very frequent that by the time I finish typing away what is in my mind, a sort of invisible weight is lifted off my chest granting me a great deal of peace which is apparently hidden underneath what at that moment might of been consuming me. It is surprisingly therapeutic to take the time to put into words what otherwise might of remained deep inside me as just feelings. I confess that I sometimes have my doubts that maybe I have said too much, revealing some of the most intimate and personal thoughts and emotions I have inside of me. However, the alternative of keeping it all bottled up inside me is what I have discovered to be a very unhealthy habit which has the tendency to erode the foundation of my overall well being.

In response to the above mentioned post, a dear and caring friend sent me a lovely email with several interesting comments that have given me a lot to reflect on. In my post I make reference to how I have kept the living room space of my home mostly vacant since I moved in almost 18 months ago. If you have not read the post, it might help to do so in order to have the full context from which she makes her comments. This is what she writes:

"Perhaps in your subconscious mind you are wanting to save that room to be filled with the special person in your life that will need a place for some of her things! I can tell you from experience, it really doesn't matter what you have going on in your life when the 'right' person comes along. If the person is the right person for you, they will accept and want to be a part of your life in the good times and the bad. They will embrace your children as theirs and support you in difficult times and rejoice with you in happy times."

How does someone acquire such vast knowledge in order to enlighten my mind and heart in just four sentences? This my dear readers is true wisdom. I am not saying that her reasoning is flawless, since in a sense the room might just be empty because currently I simply lack the financial means to purchase what I wish to fill it up with. Or maybe I might just be waiting for my son's to grow up from their habits that tend to make anything nice turn old and ugly in no time at all. In other words, I cannot profess that the room is empty because it awaits for a partner to fill it with her stuff, even though the idea is not a bad one either. However, the "right" person concept is amazingly real and accurate. Is that not what the definition of the "right" person should be? I find it impossible to improve on her simple yet brutally truthful comment. Having the most challenging, yet important part of my life "embraced" while having the "support" while things are not perfect, brings to mind the image of a God sent angel. Still, as she describes it with such eloquence my mind, heart, and soul feel teased with the prospect of such a creature being alive. To be loved with such devotion that all of what is good and bad about me and my life is not only tolerated, but also accepted...indeed, only two words could describe this soul, my angel.

Throughout my life I have had the opportunity to walk into other people's closets. I too have had to make choices about unconditional love and acceptance. I would be lying to you if I would say that I ever possessed any ability whatsoever to grow wings. I do hope though that time, maturity, and the experiences that I have collected inside my own life might somehow bring me closer to possessing the qualities that my dear friend describes for me to become the "right" person myself. What good would it do for me to have the "right" person in my life if I am not able to be the "right" person in theirs.

Dad

Five ways to not get the door slammed in your face...

Because of a comment a friend made over the phone, I am in the middle of having to think about a part of my life which I rarely take the time to think about. As many parents do, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is the right thing to do when it comes to my children, their lives, and my involvement in it. My parental role feels so important to me that apparently sometimes I neglect other parts of my life as a consequence of this notion. I find myself so deeply focused on making their lives better, that in the process I neglect my own. My clothes start to get old while I try to be a good financial provider to their needs, my health issues take a back seat to theirs, and most of my spare time is lost in the midst of their personal wants instead of my own. The more I think about my dear friend's advice, the harder it is for me to ignore that she really has a valid point which I should do a bit more than just consider it. I need to do something about it. Those that are closest to me have pointed this out several times throughout the past few years, but as most of us typically do to the advice of the ones that love us the most, I too file it away thinking that it is just a defensive reaction based on their caring perception of my life from their end. Why is it so hard to accept guidance, counseling, and advice from those that are closest to me?

An honest look at my behavior tells me that I become defensive and reactive to the gentle words of advice that are thrown my way by those closest to me. If a stranger gives me the same advice I listen attentively and take much more time to accept or dismiss it's value. On the other hand, if a loved one approaches me with the exact same advice, it is as if I feel judged and the words get twisted around in my head. I suddenly find myself interpreting their good will as criticism instead of caring advice. This is all very frustrating not just to me, but obviously to the other side of the dilemma because they eventually start to feel as if they are walking on eggshells every time they try to give me their words of wisdom. Sooner or later my illogical reaction then causes them to be afraid of sharing their thoughts because of the possibility of me being upset or taking their advice too personal. Apparently the problem is that in my mind it is very personal indeed. I sometimes spend hours on end trying to resolve parental issues, and in my mind I easily forget that those that are close to me are not as invested as I am so they are not just coming to me with ideas, but also with their own questions to understand how to be able to help me. How are they supposed to be able to feel useful if I don't allow them complete access to my decision process? Many times I have opted to not share what is cooking on the front burner because I too am afraid that my own reaction will inflict a painful third degree burn on others. I do confess though that I have been learning to deal with this personality issue for a while and that this is not really as bad as it used to be years back.

Interestingly though, the same dynamics that play a role in my above described personal behaviour also are manifested in my older son's personality. By learning how to deal with my own flaws, I have had a front seat view and understanding of my son's apathy to listening to my advice to him. I think it is very much the same what he feels when I try to communicate with him giving advice, comments, or guidance. Apparently, no matter how smart, real, or worthy my counseling might be, in his mind I too triggers a sense of being critiqued instead of being advised. So how do I reach him in order to be able to make a contribution to his well being without triggering contempt, anger, and such emotions? I suppose I need to find out what has been effective when those around me have been successful at reaching me too. These are a few things that I have learned:

1. Timing...

Timing is probably a critical component to all effective social interactions. If I try to bring my two cents when my son is in the middle of a completely emotional moment in his life, chances are that I am going to get the famous "do not disturb" sign at his door. I do this too when I am preoccupied about something that in my mind seems much more important, everything else gets put on hold or ignore status. So in essence I need to find the right moment to share my concern, my advice, or my guidance if I want it to reach the right place in his mind. This is not as easy as it may sound since teenagers seem to be more and more unreachable at this stage of their lives. Patience is critical to the timing component. No matter how eager I am to bring up a subject which I feel needs to be addressed, I have learned to wait until the right moment so that the entire interaction does not backfire and turn into a conflict between us instead.

2. How I say things...
Choosing the right way to say things is another critical component to be utilized in effective social interactions. Sometimes how I say things is much more important that what I am saying in the first place. For example, it is not the same to say "your current behaviour is destructive," than it is to say "have you noticed how things tend to fall apart in your life when you behave this way?" Another example is to say "you need to stop doing this!," is entirely different than it is to say "why do you think you should stop doing this?" Statement of facts and demands tend to sound confrontational, while thought provoking inquiries have a way of leaving the individual on the other end with the responsibility to have to think about a good answer. I rather be asked what I think it is that I am doing wrong, because it gives me a chance to make my own assessment of my behavior and its consequences. The tone of our voice, the expression in our faces, and even my body language plays a role in how my son reads me.

3. One issue at a time...
Nothing is more frustrating than having someone throw at me a dozen issues at the same time when they are trying to help me. I personally feel bombarded by this approach and am left with very little space in my mind to deal with solutions. I believe that singling out the most important issue is always critical in order to effectively keep the communication doors open during an exchange of ideas. Once one side feels that the issue at hand is too complex, very few times does a good idea on how to deal with it arises from the exchange. I try to stay focused on one issue at a time. I want to make whatever progress is possible with dealing with a single challenge so that this success in itself can serve as the momentum necessary to later deal with other issues too. I try to focus on what truly matters, and of course, what I perceive as actually having a chance to be improved. also, if I make the main issue something that cannot be changed, I am just opening the door of frustration which is truly a waste of time.

4. Don't be too serious...

Just because an issue is of a very serious nature, that does not mean that I always need to address it without humor. On the contrary, when I tell my son something important in a funny way, more than likely he stays perceptive and open for the duration of our conversation. The lighter I make the subject matter perceived, the less confrontational I seem in his eyes. Instead of bringing out the big guns about all of the terrible consequences that a particular behavior might induce, I find it much more effective to make fun of how some of the consequences could be totally undesirable. Learn to laugh at the dark side even if it is just for the opening of a serious conversation. Once we are both committed to the subject in a light hearted way, chances are that the conversation will last longer, giving me an opportunity to be much more effective in my goal of providing advice.

5. Listen...
Finally, the most important part of communicating effectively with my son is directly tied to my ability to listen. Being lectured has a way of shutting down my desires to listen, and I am sure it does the same to him. Effective listening is a lot harder than most of us think it is. Most of the time, when we are involved in a personal exchange of ideas, we tend to spend a lot of the time in which we should be listening to the other side planning our response and what to say next. In a friendly and neutral social exchange this behavior might have very little negative consequences, but in an emotional personal exchange the effects are typically bad. When my son is pouring his heart out telling me how he feels is definitely not the time for me to be mentally setting up a return volley. Instead I need to listen, and not just to his words, but also to his entire concept, idea, and demeanor. While I am listening my facial expression and my entire body language needs to be synchronization with his words, talking back to him without words what he needs to hear inside his mind that says that I am interested and willing to understand him. If I am not able to do this, the act of sitting down and taking in his words has no more effect than it would if he was talking to our cat. The way I have learned to get better at this by practicing on the little things first, issues that are of very little consequence and have a smaller emotional impact on our exchange. I guess this is why I have learned to care about so much and not just the big issues. By learning to listen to the small things I have found doors that I did not know where there to be opened in the first place.

OK, now I have to take some time to consider the advice my dear friend gave me this morning. It was actually very good and well thought advice. Even though we had not had a chance to talk in a very long time, immediately she picked up where we had left before because she is an excellent listener. "Make a list of some of the things that you have put on hold in your life because of the situation you have with your son. Then go talk to him and share some of it with him. don't be confrontational. Ask him if he thinks that there is something he can change on his end that would allow you to reach some of your goals. Tell him how his life is just beginning, but yours is already half way gone, and that putting your life on hold means having much less time to do these things. Maybe if he is able to see how he impacts your life, he will then be more receptive to the consequences of how he behaves." I am not really sure how to do all of this, even as easy as it may sound. However, that does not mean that it is not good advice, so I truly have to consider it an find how it applies to my life. Thank you dear friend.

Dad

A somewhat hollow emotion...

Sooner or later I think I might have to put some furniture into my living room. When I moved into my current residence I had been living in a two bedroom apartment, so all of the furniture that I own actually fit everywhere else and not in the living room. Originally I allowed my son and his friends to use the space for band practice, but once the group fell apart, I quickly made the move to extract their mess so I could recover the space and at least keep it clean and in order. Well, it can't get any cleaner and in order than a space with nothing in it. In many ways I see very little purpose in buying more furniture and adding more stuff for me to have to clean and maintain. However, every time I walk by the empty space I get a hollow feeling that is a bit hard to describe. On one end I feel frustrated for having to restart my life from what almost seems scratch by making all the decisions that I had already done a long time ago, like picking curtains, furniture, lamps, and wall decorations. On the other end I feel relaxed with the inside knowledge that the only person that I am having to please with respect to those kinds of decisions is myself. The simple excuse I give my children for not taking any action in this regard is that it's just us guys, we really don't need any more stuff to be happy.

In a couple of weeks it will already be 18 months since we moved into our new home. I wonder how long it will take me to accept the fact that empty spaces sometimes have a need of their own to be filled. Emotionally we all know what that feels like, to have a part of our lives that is empty and somewhat hollow. Does my living room have this need too? I doubt it. Maybe a big pool table is calling out my name instead of the typical sofa, love seat, chairs, tables, lamps, recliners, and the rest of the knickknacks that accompany the above. I guess that is guy stuff, I could sell the concept to both, my children and also myself. Yeah, but if I buy a pool table then there will be more stuff to clean. Hmmm, I need to rethink the pool table idea too.

Another excuse I have used to convince myself that I should not put anything else in the house is my fear of what happens when my oldest son has lost control of his anger. I really like my dining room table, but on one of the first occasions in which my son and I had a physical altercation one of the six chairs fell victim to his rage and now sits dismembered in my garage. Believe me when I tell you that it is beyond repair. It can be replaced but again, what is the sense of having six chairs when it is only three of us sitting at the table? Another victim of my emotional decision of just letting my more than anal retentiveness personality take a second place to the practicality of what I currently need and don't need in my life. In fact, when I lived in the apartment I could only fit one of two side tables so I had kept the unused one in it's original box for whenever I would move into a larger place. Even though I had taken the boxed contents and laid them against the wall in the family room where I intended to set the beautiful second side table, it actually took me over a year to open it and put it together. The entire assembly took me less than 15 minutes, I wonder why I had such a hard time making the effort? This is really not like me at all.

Change is difficult for some of us. My oldest son in particular has been diagnosed as not being able to make changes in his life with the same ability as others. Do I have this condition too? Could it be that he inherited this cross wiring from his old man? All I know is that I am the type of person that hates seeing things out of place and disorder, yet for some reason or another the sometimes chaotic behaviour of my child drains my will to be myself allowing things to fall apart around me for what seems too long. I now recognize that the act of making my kids do the right thing in the sense of cleanliness quickly changes my mood into a state of anxiety. I instantly get in a bad mood and start barking orders and demands while at the same time frantically going back and forth around the house cleaning everything in sight. Maybe this is why I have chosen to take a step back and not be the clean freak I was just a few years back. However, there has to be a healthier way to deal with this too.

I really like my new home, it has it's own character that makes me feel very comfortable living in it. The backyard view to the mountains is inviting and very pleasant. The dark wood in the kitchen makes me feel like it is my kitchen, a guy's kitchen. My spacious master bedroom takes away any feelings of being enclosed even when the main door is closed behind. If I simply pull the curtains apart, the view of the spa and pool with the beautiful mountains in the background give me a sense of being more outdoors than indoors. A nice wide bathtub in the master bath is always calling my name and inviting me to fill it up to relax after a long day at work. Even the garage feels great since only one vehicle spaciously waits dead smack in the middle with nothing to run into as I open any of it's doors. Each kid has his own room, and as I challenged myself while searching for a home, a guest room sits there waiting for mom to come and visit without the challenges of stairs or steps. If all of this is in such great harmony with my lifestyle, why is it that the empty living room is contributing to a blog post?

As Sigmund Freud would say, "sometimes a dream is just a dream." Well, maybe sometimes an empty space is just and empty space too! I am sure that any well trained therapist would find a dozen different ways to interpret this simple dilemma, probably making it much more complicated than it really needs to be. In the meantime, I have made the either conscious or subconscious decision that the space stays as is, empty. I will allow the somewhat hollow emotion to percolate because I am not really sure it means that much for me to do something about it. I have too many other things to worry about that take a higher priority in my life. Like my children.

Dad

An Optical Illusion...

I am constantly listening to the people around me in hopes that their tales might have in some way a lesson from which I can learn something useful to apply in my own life. Every once in a while someone will reveal the tastiest recipe to not just a culinary delight, but also to the secret of being effective in a relationship. It is easy to become skeptical to certain individuals advice, but even the worst fisherman in the world is bound to catch a good size fish once in a while, and the same is true for my goal of seeking golden clues in strange and dark places. I think that the probability of being able to yell out "eureka" is heavily impacted by my persistent and constant panning for the elusive random nugget in other people's lives. What do I have to lose, right?

The tricks to finding something useful in life are many. If you fine tune your search skills the chances of success significantly increased. What is it that you need to do to become better at this? Well, to begin with you need to understand that patience truly is a virtue and not just a cliche. Effective listening skills are much more than just shutting up our mouths and opening our ears. You need to set yourself up with the proper frame of mind before you are able to learn from others. To start with, I learned that I need to wipe out prejudice from my mind to listen effectively. What an individual looks like or sounds like might seem relevant to what they are saying, but the truth is that it is usually not. I cannot tell you how many times I have started a conversation with someone that seems from the outside to be from an entirely different world than mine to later find out that in the inside we have an incredible affinity and much more in common than I could ever imagine. The more frequent this has happened in my life, the more I have learned to let go of my prejudice to people's gender, age, race, and more than anything their appearance. The common link between me and so many others around me is our need to survive. I don't mean survival in the sense of food, water, and sleep. I mean survival in the sense of our emotional need to find happiness. When I peel off all of the surrounding drama to almost any one's story, I find that beneath it all the most abundant theme is usually either happiness or the lack of it. This blog in itself is the perfect example of this reality. Behind every post the common theme that is prevalent and definite is my own need to be happy. Sure you will find funny, interesting, and useful plastered all over my words, but when you add them all together the underlying theme is my search for happiness.

For some of us the real challenge is not simply letting go of our prejudices in order to listen and learn from strangers, sometimes we are caught up in a complicated web of our own opinions. Every time someone starts to tell us what their experiences have taught them, we jump in too quickly to put our own two cents into the conversation. This is normal human social interaction, but a real killer in our search for further knowledge. Even though this blog might give you a different idea because of my openness and willingness to write so much about me and my life, I have slowly learned to try to be more of a listener than a talker. Even when I interject into an interesting conversation, many times what I offer on my end is a desire to know and learn more from the individual across from me. "What did you mean by...How do you deal with...Where did you learn to...???" All good questions to allow others to enlighten you with their life experiences. Sure, giving my opinion is also part of a good exchange, but not necessarily the best way for me to learn something new.

The most challenging skill that I have and still am learning is the ability to differentiate between reality and fiction. It is not so much that people might purposely be lying to me when they are sharing their lives, it is more about how they perceive their own reality. I am pretty sure that if you wanted to convince me that you are in control of many parts of your life that you might perceive to be in order, you actually could. However, upon closer inspection of your life I might later discover that what seemed to be in order is actually just an optical illusion created by personality traits such as positive attitude and a happy demeanor. Behind many people's illusion of control and order sometimes a great deal of chaotic efforts are working to keep and maintain the image that they desire to project outwards to the world. I have learned that the fact that many individuals wear these costumes of distorted reality is much more common than not. There are plenty of lessons I am able to learn by reading a fictional story or watching a movie. Learning from a fictional life is not always a waste of time, but still, learning from real life is much more useful. Even more important for me, I need to be able to recognize the difference so that I can be realistic with the value and effectiveness of what I might learn.

Yesterday, at the end of having watched "The Soloist," I felt a sense of sadness that seemed too overpowering for me to accept. The main character in the movie seemed so distant from the real world because of his mental illness that the story forced me to believe that his existence was limited in it's ability to be happy. As hard as the creators and actors tried to project the reality of this amazing man, there still seemed in my mind to be something missing. I went to the "Additional Material..." section on the DVD and then watched a short clip in which the real characters of the story interact with each other during an interview. My emotional impression changed 180 degrees from what I had been left with after watching the movie. In my opinion, the movie did what it did best to create a box office hit, but in the short interview I could already see how much different this man's reality was to all of the drama that was contained in the film. I tell you this to give you an example from which I know that there are lessons contained in a real story, but the optical illusion created by the movie might not truly depict the same lessons and their distortion might make them not so useful after all. By the way, I loved the movie even more once I was able to see the real man from which the story was based upon. Hence the lesson, to me reality is much more effective of a teacher than smoke and mirrors. As soon as I am able to see the real person behind the individual that I am sharing with, I learn a great deal more useful lessons.

On a side note, but in order for me to share a final thought about sharing and learning from others, I'll leave you with this final thought. Sometimes listening is harder when the talker is including me in their subject matter. What might seem like criticism and biased opinions is most likely more about them than it is about me. When someone tells me that I make them feel one way or the other, rarely is this an accurate comment. I don't think that anyone truly makes me feel good or bad since I am in control of my own emotions and not them. I decide and it is my choice to make it personal or not. The same is true from the other end too. If someone is a jerk and starts being abusive in their tone and content, I have a choice of believing what they are saying or simply accept the fact that this is truly not about me, but instead about them and their emotional state. It has taken a lot of practice and I am not always able to do what is right, but this is when I am learning to walk away and leave the abuse behind. I am guilty just as everybody else surely must be of sometimes dragging an argument for the sake of trying to be the winner or believing that I am right and the other side is wrong. As hard as it might seem to teach this old dog new tricks, I am definitely learning this lesson and trying to apply it when the right circumstances are in place. I might try to be the sensitive guy for a while and use all those fancy techniques about repeating back to the discontent voice across from me what I hear them say in an effort to allow them to find reassurance in my voice. However, I am quickly learning that it makes even more sense to walk away from heated arguments because what is typically exchanged in those moments is definitely not of true value. Later, when the water is calmer, it makes a lot more sense to throw back in the net and try to catch the information to make things better. I am work in progress, but with so much going on in my life, this is one of the lessons that I am learning that is making a huge difference in all of my relationships, especially with my kids.

Dad

Doing my silly dance while I listen to you play...

I remember while growing up my father sitting down in the family room of our home and asking me to play something on the piano for him. I started taking lessons from the age of seven and continued until I was almost seventeen. I also remember my piano teacher being frustrated with me because instead of practicing the lessons that she would assign to me, I would sometimes spend hours trying to play by ear a song that I had heard on the radio or on a vinyl record bought by one of my sisters. Even though eventually I would find a little bit of time to practice the assigned song in the piano book being used by my instructor and the mandatory scales that were also part of the weekly lesson, most of my effort always went into learning on my own a totally unrelated piece of music. Now days most of the few remaining things that I can still remember to play are not the songs in the book, but instead the few that I put in my whole heart and soul to learn on my own.

More than fifteen feet away my dad would be sitting across the room with a light cigarette in between his fingers relaxed and patiently listening to me stumble across the correct notes of some song that I was trying to play by ear. Not once do I remember him insisting that I practice my lesson, much less my scales. Instead he would sometimes encourage me to try something totally different and unique. "Play a Polka!" he would say from across the room, hoping that I would bring up the tempo and play something more upbeat to his taste, but fully knowing that my piano book had none in that flavor. Now, as a father to my two sons, I finally realize what it was that he was listening to when he sat there across the vacant space allowing my fingers to bring a different taste to his attentive ears. It was not so much the music that he was interested in, it was my choice of songs and ability to play from the heart and not from a book. Because of him I eventually became very agile at making my own compositions in an effort to reveal what I was feeling with the use of my fast fingers on that old piano. Everything from slow sad melodies to quick upbeat piano parlor songs shot out of my mind and into my hands when I was inspired. I liked playing for my dad, it was rewarding just to have him listen without any real opinion of whether it was any good or not. I felt no threat or judgement from his presence, and much less intimidation by him sometimes doing a silly dance if I got carried away with something he found fun and upbeat.

About a week ago my oldest son finally decided to release a second essay he had written and promised to allow me to read at some point in time. I won't even bother telling you the title, much less posting its content since the entire five pages long was dedicated to such abstract subjects that it would serve no purpose other than to confuse you. Instead I will take this opportunity to give you my digested opinion of what I learned this time from his mental notes so that we can all try to make some sense of the big picture of his mind. I won't, I promise, go into any details of his proposed theories so that we can keep this post enlightening.

It has been most recently that my oldest teenage son has decided to delve into subjects that in my opinion really boil down to "the meaning of life." Interestingly, his sources are tied to not only gurus of the mind, but also some of the most brilliant quantum physicists that have graced our planet. As most people his age, he is very impressionable and finds many ways to take expert's opinion as always right, which in my opinion and at my age I have learned to not always agree. If history has taught us anything it is that what today makes incredible sense, tomorrow might be completely wrong. For decades physicist were convinced that the smallest particles in existence were the components of the atom, such as protons, electrons, and neutrons. However, later discoveries made that theory obsolete when they realized that even those elementary particles where also made of smaller ones too. The same thing happened with our perception of the Universe. No more than 50 years ago what we considered to be the entire Universe was all neatly packaged into just one single galaxy. Later on scientist realized that our Universe actually contains hundreds of billions of galaxies. If this is true with respect to the observable physical world, just imagine how little we really must know about the more abstract world of the human mind. I for one am convinced that total enlightenment about these subject matters is impossible, which in an interesting manner ties to my son's essay final conclusions too.

The content of the essay is deep, interesting, but overly complicated. In order for me to find the true meaning of his writing I was forced to stop reading more than once and start all over so that I could re-focus on the true intent behind his words. At first I only read blah, blah, blah, as if he was simply grandstanding with larger than life words and concepts trying to impress someone. However, the more I focused and made an honest attempt of my part to understand what he was writing about, I then realized that even though I might of not agreed with everything he wrote, the content actually made sense and was very well thought out. I do fear however that the only reason that I am able to make sense of his thought process might be because I have spent so much time wandering through his mind that my inside knowledge of it might be giving me a unique perspective that others would not be able to see. Regardless, I am happy to report that I not only enjoyed his essay, but I also learned a great deal of where he might currently be emotionally. It is hard at his age to separate his intellect from his emotions, which gives me as his father a bit of an advantage by being able to access much more than just his mind, some of his heart comes out too.

We promised each other that we would sit down and discuss the red ink comments that I wrote on the sidelines of his essay. Somehow he has not yet made the time for us to do this, but I am sure it will happen soon, which will be a great opportunity for me to validate some of the things I learned about him while reading it. When my son takes the time to put on paper his thoughts on any subject, it is pretty much the same as this blog and my posts which are like windows into my life, my thoughts, and obviously my feelings. No matter how abstract his material might seem, in between the lines there are so many different parts of him that I have found myself reading it over and over again and learning more and more about him. Interestingly, this is the same thing that happens when I listen to his music. The more I listen to a composition or a rendition of his choice, the more I find the true person that is typically hiding behind his dark long hair and elusive attitude. In fact, one of my favorite songs to listen to is a single track that he recorded on the ukulele that was later merged with other instruments he played with his voice over them. The composite version is not as revealing to me as the ukulele track all on its own. All by itself I am able to hear a great deal of him when he plays. It is almost as if he is talking to me, telling me about himself and his love for the sounds that he is creating with his hands, mind, and heart.

I got a copy of his new essay on a Friday. That afternoon I was suffering from a migraine and even though I made every attempt to read, I was never able to get past the first paragraph. When I tried to read it the next day my mind was just not focusing enough to make sense of his words. A few days went by and he asked me several times if I had a chance to read it, to which I replied that I was waiting to have some uninterrupted time so that I could concentrate and give it the attention I thought it deserved. He seemed eager to know what my opinion was so I tried again and by Tuesday I found an entire hour that I could spend without interruptions and any distractions. He had added some fancy words that I decided to replace with some simpler ones so I could read it and make more sense of its meaning. Some of the sentences were way too long, so again, I edited them with a red pen and broke them down to what I could then read and allow the content to stick in my mind. Soon I found myself understanding his view, a unique perspective on why the human mind could only gain access to true enlightenment if the individual was able to disassociate himself from his ego and so many of the barriers that evolution had created in our mental processing in order to survive. The subject matter was amazingly interesting, but the reason behind his essay seemed to slowly reveal itself in an even more beautiful way that I could imagine possible. It was about self awareness and man's limitations in his ultimate search for happiness. In between the fancy verbiage and much more than just complicated theories I found him giving mankind very little excuses to fail in a quest for knowledge, instead there was a subtle hint of hope and positive light to the otherwise dark subject. Even though he seemed misguided in his proposed chemical method utilized to gain all of this knowledge, the focus was never really about justifying the means with the end. The more I read and eventually understood, the cleaner the window to his mind seemed to reappear over and over again.

It is amazing to me how easy it would of been for me to dismiss this complicated method of communication because of the effort that it would take to make it useful. I am not so fortunate to be able to write to you about having simple conversations with my child that most parents might be able to have with their own. In my case, I am constantly challenged with having to put in a lot more effort than just listening. If I just listened to his words I would probably get very little more than a headache from my son's points of view. On the surface they seem too convoluted and many times even painful to hear. However, deep inside there is a beautiful human being that is wired much more differently than most of us, but still has the same emotional needs, desires, and doubts about finding a path to happiness. The challenge is much greater than I ever anticipated when I set my life in the path of bringing a new life into this world and becoming a father. Still, this is my son and if he did not need me in his life, that essay would of never reached my hands.

"Play my son, play something from the heart for your old dad. Let me hear what it is you have to tell me about your dreams and maybe even your nightmares. Pick whatever instrument you prefer as long as it speaks your thoughts and emotions when you play it. I will try to be fair and not judge you while you try to tell the world what it is that your mind and heart needs to say. In fact, it really does not matter if it is right or wrong, as long as you are able to play it loud and clear for me to do my silly dance and enjoy it with you."

Dad

Dad 101 - Ten things men should know about parenting:

10. Always make the time...

It may sound simple or it may sound terribly hard, depending on your lifestyle, but this is probably the most important advice I can give you as a father. Life has a way of getting complicated, hectic, and worse overwhelmingly busy, but nothing should ever preclude me from making time to spend with my children. I hate to admit it, but now that I am divorced I actually spend more time with my kids than I did while I was married. The truth is that even though I might of always been physically home after work while I was married, many times I really wasn't there mentally and emotionally. The frustrations that had somehow managed to fill up my mind when I finally had time off from work, found a way to create an ocean of emotional space between me and my parental life. I was more preoccupied about my own needs than I was about my children's needs. Interestingly, now that I look back at it all I realize that preoccupation had a way of filling so much of my mind that neither their needs nor mine where actually being fulfilled. What a terrible waste of time and way to live. If I had a chance to go back in time and do it all over again, I think that I would make a major effort to spend a lot less time worrying, and a lot more time doing something about it.

I opened this post with a harsh reality that might make it sound like I was lacking in my role as a father. Realistically I don't want to beat myself up too much because I do realize that I am a lot tougher on myself than I should be. Enough counseling and advice from people that know me well enough have taught me that I tend to not give myself enough credit for my devotion as a father. In my heart I know that I have not been neglectful in my duties, I just always find images and moments in my mind in which I wish I would of snapped out of an emotionally down moment sooner than I actually did. Would of, could of, should of, are all part of my checks and balances in parenting but are not always that healthy of an approach to living life to the fullest. Still, the advice is sound, solid in its content with respect to being a good parent. If at all possible, always make time for your children. One hour of sharing goes a really long way in their need to feel important in your life. Nothing does a better job at ruining a child's self esteem than a parent not giving them the proper attention at the right time.

I see it all the time in the life of the people around me. Too many adults today are in the middle of their lives and still seeking the approval and attention of their not so attentive parents. I was fortunate to have parents that made their children the number one priority in their lives. The dedication of my mother and father was much more than just admirable, it was amazing. However, this is not the case for too many other people for so many reasons that it would take a book to name each of them in writing. I have experienced through the most beautiful person I know and love what it is like to not get the time that you need from a parent. Her heart is in what seems to be a state of suspended animation, always waiting for any kind of affirmation and sign of approval, caring, value, and most of all love from her mother. Amazingly the caring part seems abundant in many gestures of financial support and the once in a while acknowledgment of her own ability to have raised very good children, but this is not good enough, not good enough at all. The lack of imparting real value to the smallest things that she is able to do are even apparent when her mother is sometimes not able to remember neither the big things and much less the little things about her childhood, and in fact even her adulthood too. This exposure to such an emotional lack of parental acknowledgement has made me realize how incredibly important it is for parents to be there not just physically, but also emotionally and in every sense of the word when they are giving time to their children.

I believe that when as parents I fail to prioritize the time that I share with my children, too much is left to chance with respect to their emotional well being. As a father I need to be there not just as an image or parachute to rescue my children when they fall, I also need to be there to validate their sense of belonging to something much larger than just their existence. Nothing can replace a gesture of pride and respect. My children need to know that I am not just the guard that keeps them in line, but also the repository in which all of their accomplishments are retained for their immediate access to nourish their self esteem. I cannot forget what they did correctly because they later made a mistake, that is poor parenting in my opinion. I cannot cancel the good with the not so good because if I do, then what is left is nothing. Nobody can grow to be a healthy individual with nothing to look back on in the way of success and accomplishments. What I am proposing is something that I can do without the need of special training, a degree in psychology, or having to read a dozen books on good parenting. I should be able to offer my children my time with the same commitment that I do so in my professional and personal life with others. Are my kids not just as or more important than anyone else?

Of all the things that I can change and do better with respect to the parenting of my children, always making time to be there for them is what I believe to be the most important. This is by no means a call for fathers to give up their personal and professional lives in order to spend all of their time with their children. What I propose is for us men to make a self assessment of our lives and how we intend to be effective fathers. The key is finding the right balance between the extremes of obsessiveness and neglect. Right there in the middle of those two extremes is a very reasonable place to set your goal and become the effective parent that your children deserve in their lives. If you believe that you are currently already doing it right, I applaud you. If you discover that maybe there is some kind of adjustment needed for you to do this adequately, you are half way there, what remains is for you to just do it!

This is the final post of the series of "Ten things men should know about parenting." I hope that in each of these posts you have been able to find something that might be of use to you personally. My goal was to allow my words to serve you as an example of some of the things that we sometimes take for granted but should never forget. Of course I can only speak from my own experience, so I am sure that your life might have addendum's to this list that could be significantly important and I might of missed. Please feel free to share with the rest of the class, more knowledge is always better than less. Leave your comments, recommendations, advice, and input so that we can all learn from you too.

Dad

Dad 101 - Ten things men should know about parenting:

9. Stay informed...

I can easily recognize how much different my life growing up was compared to my parent's lives. Because of this I don't assume that my children's lives growing up will be like mine. One of my favorite things to do with my mom is to ask her to tell me stories of when she was younger. As she colorfully describes her early days I am able to see a much different world of games, interests, social behavior, and childhood interactions compared to my own. Some of the basic differences that prevail in most of her tales are the apparent simplicity to life and its gentler consequences. For example, as for Christmas presents, the most she expected was a single toy, not the mountain of gifts that I was brought up receiving. It isn't really that hard for me to see that time has changed some of the most basic social interactions between my children and the world that surrounds them. In fact, the changes are not just on how they interact with me and within themselves, but also how society's external influences interact with them. This is why I strongly believe that today, more than ever, I need to stay informed on both sides of these sociological changes. In order for me to have any kind of real connection with my children, the days of crossing my arms and simply stating that it is my way or the highway are pretty much over. It is not so much that I cannot take this kind of stance, it is more about how much less effective this parental approach has become in the twenty first century. Just because I, as an individual, refuse to jump on the band wagon of current technology or social behavior, that means absolutely nothing with regards to their influence on my children. My inclination is to hitch my retro-aged wagon to the train of progress, or get ready to become totally clueless and ineffective to my children's needs and the world that surrounds them today.

What do I know about teenagers and mind altering drugs? Really, what are the chances that my child will experiment with alcohol, marijuana, heroine, cocaine, or LSD? Do I know the difference between these substances? Which ones are addictive and which ones are not? What happens when they take any of these substances? Would I be able to recognize the effects by simply looking at my child's behavior or demeanor? What about over the counter drugs or prescription drugs? In the past, for my child to get high, at a minimum, he had to be connected to someone that could provide him with the necessary concoction for his trip to an altered state of reality. Today my children are able to find what they need inside my own medicine cabinet or that of a friends or family member. Getting drugs is no longer about dark corners and fishy characters. Today's pushers are unknowingly mothers, fathers, grandparents, other relatives or neighbors. Pain killers, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, cough syrups, muscle relaxants, allergy medications, and many others are the elixirs of choice for today's getting high activity. All my children need to do is log on to the Internet and get the right cocktail mix and poof, there it is, the perfect potion to get high! The truth is that now days, as ironic as it may sound, getting high with some Internet recommendation might be much less harmful than what a lot of kids are actually doing instead. It is not uncommon for them to go into your medicine cabinet, grab whatever they can find, and then head to their local party house and simply throw it into a big bowl that is then used for everyone to simply grab a random handful of pills and consume them to later discover what the effects will be in the next few hours. If you think that I am exaggerating, maybe it's time for all of us to take a reality pill and start doing our own research so that we can find out how common this is in real life.

This may all sound a bit harsh, but better for me to discover this reality today, than ten years from know when it might be too late for me to catch up with the times. When I take a look back at my own life and how much different it is from that of my parents I easily discover the true magnitude of our sociological gap. It amazes me how little generational time has gone by between me and my parents, which then allows me to make an assessment as to how significant the gap has become in relation to my life and that of my children. I remember what it took to buy a few condoms when I was young, or worse to take a peek at the December issue of Playboy, Penthouse, or if I was lucky Hustler magazine. Not every store in town carried condoms, and much less what now seem to be almost tame adult magazines. The toughest thing was having to face the clerk at the register with a box of condoms or the cute bunny on the cover magazine, and still I remember doing it. Today, not only can anyone to see some of the nastiest, raunchiest, and most perverted sex images by simply typing a few letters on the keyboard of our computers, but also when we decide to go to the store and to buy our "I don't want to get her pregnant, much less die for having sex" lubricated condoms, the decision comes in flavors such as "Twisted Pleasure, Her Pleasure, Intense Ribbed, and Shared Pleasure" to ensure that we get it right in the 12 variety pack, plus two bonus! What I am trying to say is that times have changed and they are only going to change even more so the time to figure it all out is now!

As a father I need to stay informed. It's not good enough to know what I already knew from my own experiences, I also need to dive into my children's world. If I own a computer, and it is obvious that if I am writing or reading this blog chances are that I do, I need to try to keep up with all of the advances that are touching the lives of my children. The closer I am to their world, the easier it is going to be for me to understand what is going on. About two years ago my oldest son one night decided to disappear on me and head out to some party at some unknown to me friend's home. All I knew was that when he originally asked if he could go I said no, but then a couple of hours later the little rascal simply disappeared. Even though he knew that I am the nerdy type and pretty good at working with electronic media, for some dumb reason before he snuck out of my place he forgot to turn off his computer. I searched the history of what he had been doing on the computer and was able to find the location of his escaping adventure. Imagine the surprise in his face when I showed up knocking on the door of the house in which he had disappeared to and was actually planning on spending the entire night at! I swear I wanted to strangle him in front of everyone but somehow our joint therapy on anger management had at least taught me to control my discontent and handle the situation a bit more civilized. It could of been one of the most terrifying nights of my life not knowing where he was and how to find him, but the fact that I knew how to do a couple of tricks on the computer from which he had stupidly planned his escapade, truly saved the night.

I need to learn about my kid's habits and what is going on in their school, and what is happening all around them. I cannot wait until I have a crisis on my hands to then start learning; more knowledge is always better than less. In fact, most kids believe that their parents are so dumb that they will leave every clue in the book out in the open thinking that we won't be able to figure it out. If I ask them, most of the time they will even tell me about other kids and how they are getting into trouble. The more I know, the more equipped I will be in order to effectively keep things in order.

I know that this post is a bit harsh in some of it's content since most of us don't really want to hear about the possibility of our children doing drugs, having sex, or getting into any kind of serious trouble. Unfortunately not wanting to hear about these kinds of issues is one of the reasons that sometimes we end up finding out the hard way that we should of done something about it a lot earlier in their lives. The least I can do is to stay informed, learn as much as I can, and definitely keep my eyes open for any of the signs that might bring with them the unfortunate news that the innocent younger years are over and that it is now time to deal with some much more serious and scary issues. I have asked a lot of parents about these kinds of subjects and can safely say that it happens more that most people like to admit. There seems to be some kind of hushness to admitting that we have problems with our children, as if it portrays us as bad parents when in reality it is just a sign of our times. My experience has been that once I start telling someone about some of the situations that I have had to deal with, suddenly a new portrait starts to become clear about their parenting experiences too. It is almost as watching one of those old Polaroid photographs beginning to slowly but surely reveals itself as if it was magic. Like they say, hope for the best but plan for the worse.

Dad

Dad 101 - Ten things men should know about parenting:

8. Allow them to be themselves...

One of my biggest mistakes that I learned to correct early on as being a parent was the image of wanting any of my kids to be something or someone that they are not. It really did not take much effort to realize that this unhealthy mental attitude of imposing my dreams on my children was as much a bad idea for them as it was for me. As far as I am able to tell, we are who we are and very little of our parental wishes and desires is passed on genetically. I might be able as father to contribute beyond the gene swap by nurturing and offering my children a conducive environment towards education, religion, and good health. However, I now know that I need to keep my mental bar of their success grounded on reality and not fantasies. This has nothing to do with me allowing them to dream to be anything they want to be in life. I can and encourage them to do that all the time. What this has to do with is my ability to be supportive, loving, and nurturing of their own dreams and not mine.

This all might sound like a simple concept to grasp, yet what is tricky is not the part about understanding it, the challenge is executing it. In my life, I have found myself to be very lucky that my own parents had this concept pretty much worked out by the time I was growing up. It really did not matter what path I decided to take, at every turn my mom and dad were completely supportive of my decisions. I could tell that sometimes they were doubtful of my reasons, but even so they always gave me a two thumbs up when I made up my mind to do it my way. My mom tells me that when I changed tracks from pre-med and I left Puerto Rico and transferred to Texas A&M, my father was totally excited about my decision to become an engineer instead of a doctor. Interesting though that I never saw that in his even keeled attitude towards my decision. Less than a month later I was calling from Texas telling my parents that I did not like it there and wanted to come back home. Over the phone all I got was support, encouragement, and love. However, my mom tells me that once the phone call was over she looked into my fathers eyes and saw him do something totally out of character for him, he cried. I learned about this moment years later when I had already graduated from college and my father had passed away. This story grounded me early on to realize that as a father I needed to be there for my children even if their decisions felt wrong at any given moment. Seriously, my father never tried to talk me into changing my mind. To me, this is one of the most important lessons I have learned from my father.

I give you this advice not just because it makes sense, but also because it works. I need to allow my children to be themselves. I cannot force my dreams on them no matter how tempting it might seem at the moment. I need to lead them by example and then allow them to make their own mistakes because this is how boys turn into men, and girls turn into women. Of course I do want to set the appropriate environment for them to make healthy decisions, but I don't expect them to do what I would do in their shoes all the time. Did I do what my parents expected me to do all the time? When I see them making the same mistakes that I made, I know it is hard to hold my tongue, but if I survived those mistakes they will too. The time to teach them about the things that I did wrong in life was early on, when they were still receptive to my opinion and wisdom. I can still reinforce the right ideas, but I cannot expect them to be as effective if I waited until they were teenagers to do so. Fortunately for me, I learned this lesson a long time ago and I think that I did a good job planting good seeds early on. Now, even though it is sometimes very painful to watch, I have to allow them to make their own mistakes.

I think that it would be wrong of me to try to change my kids, to make them something that they are not. Just because their personalities are sometimes hard to deal with, this does not make them bad in any way shape or form. From the beginning I did what I thought was the right thing to do and showered them with love and attention. So no matter how rough their character might seem at times, I know that deep inside they are tender and loving too. Surely they will ultimately find their way to being good men themselves, why should I doubt that? Something that I have noticed and sometimes felt confused about is watching how some children that have been neglected by their fathers after their parents get a divorce, tend to gravitate towards the neglecting parent. I see them idealizing the irresponsible parent and seeking their attention and approval more than other children from divorced parents in which both parents have stayed true to their parenting responsibilities. I can only assume that this gravitation towards the not so good parent is a cry for their love and attention. I can also only assume that the parent has no idea of how damaging this role behavior might be by the sad lesson that is being learned by the child. If you fall under this category, you might want to re-evaluate your parental role. In fact, I hate to say it, but according to some friends that have been on the other end of this dilemma, no parenting is sometimes much better than bad parenting. It is like saying that no influence is much better than a bad influence. I am not certain if this is true, but it makes a lot of sense.

If I was only allowed to use two words to describe my kid's personality, I think I would be in a really tough spot. Every individual is an entire universe full of so many characteristics that make them entirely unique. It is this uniqueness that allows so many people to find someone else to share their lives. However, given the challenge of the two word limitation I would venture to say that my youngest son would be best described as being "happy and good hearted." For my oldest son I would probably pick "brilliant and moody." Each of them has their own way of dealing with life's challenges, yet both were raised in the exact same environment. My challenge is to allow them to be themselves when dealing with their life challenges, while at the same time I provide them with the assurance that I am always here for them. Just yesterday I asked my youngest son how he felt about what in my mind is his older brother's bad influence because of his smoking habit. He had a brilliant answer that really made me think and understand him better afterwards. He simply said, "Dad...I am not impressionable." Meaning that what others did around him, including his brother, would not change who he is himself. Wow, that reminded me so much about myself. From a very early age nothing that any of my friends did around me had enough impact on me to make me change who I was either. I believe his self assessment and will take his words to heart. In fact, I am happy that I asked him that question since this gives me an even stronger reason to step aside and allow both my son's to simply be themselves.

Dad

Dad 101 - Ten things men should know about parenting:

7. Let them do it too...

I am probably the most guilty party to this mistake that I know off. How did I learn as a man to fix things, do a complicated task, or for that matter the easy things that I do day in and day out? Obviously by doing them over and over again. I remember the day that I started asking my mom to buy me cotton shirts instead of the psychedelic polyester ones that were in fashion during the 70's. Her first response was..."OK, but make sure you know how to iron them yourself because I am not going to do it for you." To this day I am pretty sure that I can iron my clothes better than any woman I ever dated. Don't get me wrong, it was not like my mom or one of my sisters would not get me out of a jam if I needed something ironed in a hurry. In fact, when we were getting ready to go out as a family whomever was ironing their own stuff typically would ask around to see if anyone else needed something ironed, this being a generous gesture that was always done in the spirit of getting to our ultimate location on time. However, we all grew up knowing how to do our own laundry, iron our own clothes, and cook something to eat when hunger struck. For this I thank both my parents that made it a goal to create self sufficient and reliant individuals out of each one of us.

I know it is a lot easier to just open the fridge and crack that egg over the frying pan to make them breakfast, but I am doing a disservice to my children when I don't teach and then later allow them to do some of these simple things on their own. Still, I admit again that I am the worst individual that should be writing about this because I am so compulsive myself that I find it really hard to stop doing the things that I do for my kids. I have taught them to do a lot of the home stuff like laundry and a few meals, but I still find myself going around the house getting their dirty clothes to do our combined loads. In my defense, my two kids are boys, which up to this moment as far as I can tell would rather wear the same dirty shirt all week than open the closet and pick a clean one unless I remind them not to do so. The older guy is more self aware of his hygiene than the younger one, but even he will recycle dirty clothes which I find totally disgusting! For this reason I find myself trying to be a good dad and keeping them from triggering the olfactory senses of hound dogs two counties away.

Domestic chores are one thing, and manly duties are another. I can understand that many men might not be inclined to getting under the hood of a car, or inside a wall socket to fix what might be broken, of course this has much to do with what we are inclined to do and very little with what we are able to do. Not all guys like to fix things and I truly respect that choice. However, some of us have that freaking "take apart and fix gene" and we cannot help ourselves. I do confess though that as I've gotten older I am less and less inclined to get all greasy unless I really have to. Just because I know how does not mean I really want to fix certain things because I already know how many things usually go wrong every time I do so. Changing a toilet is a piece of cake unless all the bolts and pipes are rusted, which is more typical than not. Don't get me started with fixing something in the engine of a car, they always put a bolt in a spot that requires you to take half the engine out in order to get to it! I've learned that somethings are worth paying someone else to do for you too. However, how will your kids learn to do some of these things if you don't show them? I always do my brakes in my cars, so I try to get at least one of them involved in that task every time I set time aside to do it.

A few months back during the heavy rain season I discovered the hard way that the roof in the living room area of my home started to leak when I walked into a flooded carpet. Fortunately for me, since I had only bought the house less than a year before the incident, no furniture still occupies that space minimizing the damage and frustration. Unfortunately for me none of the insurance or warranties actually covered the damage so the estimate to have this fixed was much higher than the balance on my savings account. I hate getting into debt, so instead I decided to have it temporarily patched until I have the money cash to get it fixed. Recently the Santa Ana winds did a number on the contractor's patching job which blew almost all of the roofing material off and into my pool, back and front yard. Knowing that rain season is on it's way I took the day after off to work on patching it all up myself this time. To my surprise, when I asked my oldest son if he would be willing to get up there and give me a hand, he said yes. What took the expert contractor an hour to do six months earlier, took my son and I three hours instead. I had estimated it would take me four hours not knowing that my son would be helping me, and to my surprise he is not half bad with a construction hammer which saved me not only time but also a bit of my aging back muscles. He helped me with everything I did, not once questioning the task even if it meant getting down and dirty to do it. I was and still am really proud of both of us for being able to learn together and do a little bit more male bonding. I was so impressed with his help that I suggested that next time we do it right and fix it ourselves instead of just patching it up, to which he eagerly replied with a firm "I'll help you" which definitely reached deep into my sense of fatherly pride.

Every time I have pulled out a soldering iron, screw driver, pliers, or any other tool to fix one of his musical instruments, I make it a point to sit him next to me so that he can watch me do it and learn. My youngest son has helped me with my car brakes, and fixing our computers too. OK, maybe I am still not that good at letting them do it all on their own, yet I think that many of the lessons I bring to them are better than none at all. Each one of my boys is different in what they are good at, but both of them are good at something that without my support, encouragement, and a few basic lessons, they would of never even considered doing on their on in the first place. Sometimes I see the mistake coming their way, but I try to stay out of their way so that they can learn from their own mistakes. You just can't get any good at folding your own tortilla and making a burrito unless you do it over and over again!

Dad

Dad 101 - Ten things men should know about parenting:

6. Tell them about yourself...

It is easy to forget that even though they are living with me day in and day out, my kids were not with me during my younger years. Funny how we tend to tell stories to our friends in order to liven up a conversation or give them access to our past, yet sometimes we miss out on a great opportunity to share the same part of ourselves with our children. We complain that they are disconnected and into their own worlds, yet we fail to realize that one of the few ways to bring them into our world is for us to share our history with them.

47 years have gone by in a blink of an eye, but there must be some good stories to share that can contribute to my goal of reaching out to my boys and finding some common ground between us. I had some of the most wonderful life experiences any teenage boy could dream of. Through middle school and high school I always found ways to get myself into and out of trouble without leaving much of a trace. I confess that my weakness had absolutely nothing to do with drinking and much less using any sort of illegal drug. However girls, oh my God, that was an entirely different story. Nothing occupied more space in my hormone raging body and mind than the thought of some cute girl. At one point in time I think I must of been in what then seemed like love with at least ten girls at the same time. How could anyone expect me to be able to pick just one? They were all just gorgeous to me, and what one might lack in physical attributes, she then made up for in the tone of her voice, the smell of her hair, or her beautiful smile. I was never too picky because for me they were almost all just perfect in one way or another. My young minded theory was, why focus on what is wrong when you can focus on what is most definitely right about a girl!

Soon I found myself graduating from high school a year early for one single reason, of course, the girl I was in love with was a year older than me and headed to college. One way or another, running towards or running away, but girls were the common denominator in all of my teenage life equations. Then it hit me, if I thought that high school had lots of cute girls, college was even a greater source of those wondrous creatures that only God could of made so damn perfect. I must of had an amazing mind, otherwise how in the world did I ever get such good grades in college when my head was constantly exploding with so much nonsense. I think that having a steady girlfriend really helped, otherwise I would of been so preoccupied about meeting a new girl every week that there would of been very little time to focus on anything else. Eventually she transferred to the University of Mississippi, which is why I moved from Puerto Rico a year after and headed to beautiful Ole Miss. Like I said before, if you are ever looking for a decision that made very little sense, look again, there was probably a young lady tied to my mental processor.

Eventually I did finish college, got my engineering degree, and joined the rest of the world in the not so joyful adulthood life full of responsibilities. I must of made a million and one mistakes in that path that I took headed to reality, in which every single one contains a lesson to be shared with my kids. As I have said before, I am deeply sorry for any and all of those that I might of hurt on my way to become a man, however, I do thank you for the lesson since it is because of you that today I am a better person. It is also because of all of those lessons that I am now able to share my colorful life with my children and teach them what is the most significant differences between being a boy and being a man. In looking at the above photograph I am certain that the wild child that roamed inside me during my own teenage years must be a part of the same creature that lives inside of my kids today. The same free spirit that was finally tamed with age and responsibility still carries in me not just the lessons that made me a man, but also the adventures that drove me towards my dreams and aspirations. I know that these adventures are kin to my teenage boy's impulses, so why not connect the dots and make them work for us to be closer instead of farther apart.

The lesson, if there is one to be shared on this post, is to not just chastise your children with examples of how in your days things were different. Reach a little deeper, be a little more honest not just with yourself, but also with them. Tell them about yourself with respect to the things that are still the same. Find the similarities in your personalities, the common ground that will allow you to walk together once in a while and bond between each other. Don't sugar coat your mistakes, tell them as they really happen so that they can value your sincerity, your honesty, your respect for their minds. They are not just kids, they are your kids! If you do not give in to the true facts of your own childhood, teenage years, and eventually adulthood, who will be able to teach them those lessons instead? This is your job, your duty, and most of all your responsibility. Not school, teachers, church, or ministers and priests...nobody but you can make that connection deep enough to make a real difference. The next time that they walk up to you and say "dad, I'm bored..." instead of digging in your mind for something to do, dig in your heart for something to share. Tell them the stupid things you did that cost you much more than money. If your life has been anything like mine, then it must be full of adventures that once shared with your children will become the stories that find a way to fill some of the blank pages in their own minds. After all, I see nothing wrong with my life being the preface to theirs.

Dad