LESSONS FOR A SON

Lessons for a son, just in case
By Jonathan Comey
First Person
January 23, 2011 12:00 AM

I had fairly major surgery a few months ago and, in the nights before the procedure, my mind naturally turned to all of the complications that could ensue.

Especially what I privately referred to, in my own dark way, as the "ultimate complication."

With these thoughts came other thoughts, mostly about my son. When I was a boy, I'd sometimes happen across sealed letters from my mother with my name written on the front. I was told that these were in the event of "¦ well, in the event of ultimate complications.

I never had the urge to read these letters, and scoffed at them in my blissful ignorance, but as the date of that surgery neared 30 years later, I understood my mom completely. Most of raising a child is a mix of maintenance and mischief, but the goal of every parent is for their kids to grow up with a set of values that will serve them well, values that will give them a chance at success, happiness and understanding.

And so, for the first time, I asked myself: What did I want to teach my son about the world if, by chance, I was no longer in it?

Be kind to other people.

Be loyal and cautious. Never stop having fun.

Enjoy all different types of weather. Stay up late during a blizzard or a thunderstorm or a hot summer's night, watch the sky and mull over the meaning of it all.

Always remember that as an American you were born luckier, freer, healthier and more privileged than almost all of the people on earth. It might not always seem so, but most don't have what you take for granted.

Eat anything you want as long as it's in moderation. This is better for you physically and mentally. Don't drink too much. Drugs and cigarettes are very hard to quit and you will eventually want to quit them in the worst way. Don't start.

Try not to judge others. Everyone is shaped by their environment and genetics in ways they can't control. Look for the best parts of people.

Be friendly to older people. They love it. It restores their faith in humanity.

Wear your seatbelt, and never drive drunk. Be a designated driver for others.

The true joy of life is bringing joy to others. Sometimes this can feel like a burden, but it's worth it.

Don't let your friendships fall apart. Once you've made a friend, they feel kinship with you for life, whether they try to keep it alive or not. This also sometimes feels like a burden, but is worth it.

Don't dwell on what should be. Deal with what is and how to make the most of it.

Don't be afraid to commit to love. Focus on what you love about your spouse and not what you don't. Accept that monogamy is difficult.

Don't sweat politics. You can't change the system, and you don't really know what's going on anyway. Put your trust in the people who seem the most real, and hope for the best.

Stay away from war at all costs. Do not join the fight unless the cause is so blindingly just that you have no other choice. Support your country at all times. Don't bash the president. He or she is doing the best they can.

Enjoy as many different types of music, movies and games as you can. There's something wonderful in all of it.

You're never quite as good at things as you think you are, but that's OK. Shooting high usually produces a good result, even if it leaves you feeling unfulfilled.

Grandparents are special in ways that your parents aren't. Let them spoil you, but never be ungrateful.

Don't keep secrets. It's hard to tell the truth sometimes, but secrets make you feel worse.

Be really careful on bicycles and in cars. They are super dangerous.

There is some type of higher power, but I don't know what it is. The unknown can be scary. You'll spend a lot of nights thinking about what it all means, and that's not bad. The mornings will follow.

When people you love die, always keep pictures of them close. It's not easy, knowing they're not around, but your memories can be the next best thing. Talk to them. They are still with you.

Finally, and most importantly: Have kids. It's scary, and it always threatens to break your heart and it's frustrating and it's tiring and it'll clean out your bank account and it'll sometimes make you absolutely crazy "¦ but it's the best part of life.

Jonathan Comey is sports editor of The Standard-Times.

MY THOUGHTS

i don't know why i'm sharing this. maybe because i sometimes think of writing to some people, just in case.

If You Don’t Design Your Future, Someone Else Will

Warning: If You Don’t Design Your Future, Someone Else Will

One day, a man came up to me and invited me to speak to their company.
When he told me the date of their conference, I told them I couldn’t make it.
He asked if I could speak the following year, and I declined it too.
He asked if I could speak the year after that—and I said my calendar was still booked for the date.
He asked, “Can we invite you to speak to our group in 2013?”
I began to laugh.
This was getting to be embarrassing.
But the man in front of me wasn’t laughing.
“Bo, I’m serious. You turned down our invitation for 2010, 2011, and 2012. Don’t tell me you’re booked for 2013?”
Here’s the truth: Yes, I was booked.
Some of my appointments are booked until the day I die.
For example?
If you ask me, “Bo, what will you be doing on Tuesday nights in the year 2025?” I’ll answer, “Having dates with my lovely wife.”
How do I know?
Since we got married 12 years ago, I’ve given my Tuesday nights to her.
Having weekly dates with her has been the bedrock of our marriage. Our lifesaver. Our refreshment. Our bond. Our joy.
I also have weekly dates with my 2 boys on Monday afternoon.
I have weekly lunches with my 85-year old Mom on Wednesdays.
These are my non-negotiable appointments in my life.
That’s why my relationships are strong. Vibrant. Life-giving.
That’s why my family life is tight.
I set these appointments for years—no, for decades—in advance.
Why?
Because if you’re not going to design your future, someone else will.

Don’t Let Thieves Steal Away Your Family’s Future

There are thieves that want to steal away your family life.
Thieves like Busyness.
Hurry-titis. (An epidemic today!)
Materialism.
TV addiction.
Selfishness.
Adultery.
Money problems.
Protect your family!
How? Next to God, make your family first.

I’d like to personally invite you to take my 7-Session Online Course, Relationship Reborn. You don’t have to go anywhere. From the comfort of your homes, you can listen or watch me talk about what you can do to enrich your family life. Yes, you can have a great marriage. Yes, you can have a great relationship with your kids.
Don’t leave it to chance. To design the future of your family life, log on at www.FamilyReborn.com now.

May your dreams come true,

Bo Sanchez

PS. Protect your Family Life. What kind of future do you want? To design your future for your family, log on at www.FamilyReborn.com now.

MY THOUGHTS

what kind of thieves do you have? we see them all over. inside our homes. in other homes. what's sad is, we don't even know they are thieves. we think we're being busy for our loved ones, working hard so we can provide for them. only to find that, in out business, in our desire to provide the material things, we have failed to protect our relationships with them. think about this now. before it's too late.

Learn about Holywood Parenting

RIE: Is Hollywood's Latest Parenting Trend Wacky or Smart?
Jenna McCarthy ON Nov 2, 2010 at 12:36PM

There’s a new parenting trend in Hollywood, and for once it has nothing to do with giving your child a wacky name or parading her around town in a stroller that costs as much as a car. RIE, short for Resources for Infant Educarers and pronounced like "wry" (ironic!), is all about getting back to basics and creating an infant-oriented environment devoid of blinking, beeping, buzzing toys and parents who are inclined to swoop in at the first sign of tears. (Famous followers reportedly include Jamie Lee Curtis, Helen Hunt, Tobey Maguire and Felicity Huffman.) The RIE approach, proponents insist, helps raise children who are competent, confident, curious, cooperative, cheerful and aware.

Of course, RIE isn’t new. It was founded in the 1970s by an infant educator and a pediatric neurologist and, admittedly, lots of things about the parenting approach make sense. For instance, followers eschew fancy gadgets, pointing out that busy toys produce passive children who are destined to become tiny TV addicts. Instead, RIE-approved playthings include simple objects babies can use imaginatively in multiple ways, like stacking cups, empty water bottles and wooden spoons. Once the child is engaged, parents are taught to watch and respect the way he or she chooses to interact with a toy and not direct the play. Daily parenting duties -- think diapering, changing, feeding -- are viewed as opportunities to engage and instruct, not tedious roadblocks to playtime.

On the other hand, there are some aspects of RIE that could make it challenging to execute flawlessly. For instance, parents are encouraged not to immediately console a sobbing tot but to view a baby’s cries as intelligent, meaningful communication in need of deciphering. Which is all kinds of enlightened and fabulous in theory -- until you’ve got a career-making conference call or other children sleeping nearby. Similarly, while I agree that the RIE motto “never disturb a contented baby” makes a nice wall plaque, when you’ve got to get another kid to soccer practice, dinner is burning on the stove and the UPS guy is banging on the screen door demanding a signature, sometimes baby’s precious contentment is going to have to be disturbed.

There isn’t much opposition to RIE, save for a few claims that some advocates take the approach to extremes (No singing? No dancing? Didn’t these people see what happened when they tried to ban those in Footloose?), and that even in moderation, notions like “never disturb a contented baby” can be wildly inconvenient. Sort of like parenting in general.

MY THOUGHTS

anything extreme is bad. so, whether your a holywood parent or not, there are some RIE principles that should be taken seriously while some should be discarded.

Talking to Your Kids About Sex

10 Tips on Talking to Your Kids About Sex


New data shows teen STD and pregnancy rates are rising. Here’s how to help lower your child’s risk.
By: Karen Springen


The news is unsettling for parents of young girls: A new report from the Guttmacher Institute finds that for the first time in more than a decade, teen pregnancy rates are climbing again. The researchers calculated that more than seven percent of teen girls between 15 and 19 became pregnant in 2006, a three-percent increase over the previeous year. Separate data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the rate rose another one percent in 2007 (the most recent year that data is available).

That comes on the heels of a CDC study published in the journal Pediatrics in December 2009 that concluded one in four teenaged girls in the U.S. has a sexually transmitted infection. The CDC also found that 15- to 19-year-old girls had the largest number of chlamydia and gonorrhea cases last year compared to every other age group.

Here are 10 tips to help make sure your child doesn't become one of those scary statistics:

1. Start young. If your preschooler asks where babies come from, don’t tell them a stork story. “Explain that men have sperm and women have eggs, and the sperm and the egg get together, and that can form into a baby,” says Mark Schuster, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and co-author of Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex But Were Afraid They’d Ask. That helps set the stage for later conversations about sex and pregnancy.

2. Help them set boundaries. Even at an early age, it’s important to discuss “good touch, bad touch”—or what’s appropriate and what’s not, says pediatrician Elizabeth Alderman of Children’s Hospital of Montefiore. Make it clear that your kids should come to you if anyone makes them uncomfortable or behaves inappropriately around them. That can also help lay the groundwork for talking to your daughter later about not feeling pressured to have sex. “Then your child knows, ‘I can talk about these sorts of things with mom or with dad,’” says Dr. Justin Richardson, co-author of Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex But Were Afraid They’d Ask.

3. Prepare them for puberty. “You do not want your daughter bleeding and not knowing what it is,” says Schuster. Explain to her what menstruation is and that once she gets her period she can also get pregnant. And if your son hasn’t heard about wet dreams, he may think he has peed in his bed, he says. Explaining the changes his body is going through also gives you the opportunity to talk to him about the consequences of sex.

4. Remember that not talking about sex doesn’t mean they won’t have it. Seven percent of high school students say they had vaginal intercourse before they turned 13, according to the CDC. A third of ninth graders say they have had it. “A lot of parents don’t want to talk to their kids about sex for fear that if they talk about it, they give permission to have it,” says Ben Siegel, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on the psychosocial aspects of child and family health. To avoid that, make sure you're clear about the risks that come with having sex.

5. Give them information, but let them know where you stand. Child psychiatrist Elizabeth Berger, author of Raising Kids with Character, says parents should feel comfortable giving their kids the firm message that “sex is for grown-ups.” Even if you’re talking to your kids about the importance of using protection, you can preface it by stating that you don’t support them having sex. “Tell them ‘I’d like you to postpone having sex, but if you are going to have it, use a condom and other birth control’,” says Siegel.

6. Skip “The Talk.” It puts too much pressure on everyone. Instead, sprinkle information about sexuality throughout your child’s life, says Lynda Madaras, author of books like What’s Happening to My Body? Ask your child about what she knows and what she’s heard. Take advantage of “teachable moments.” If there’s a news story about a celebrity teen who is pregnant, for example, use it as an opportunity to bring up the topic and the consequences of having unprotected sex. A car ride can be a good time to chat since your kids don’t need to make eye contact with you and feel embarrassed.

7. Don’t talk down to them. When your child asks a question involving sex, avoid telling them they’re “too young” to talk about the subject or punting to the other parent, says Schuster. Be honest with them and treat their questions seriously. You want them to feel comfortable about approaching you with any concerns or questions they have in the future too. “If we don’t answer when they’re young, when they’re teenagers, they will have learned not to come to us,” he says.

8. Use specific language. Everyone’s heard of the birds and the bees. But when it comes to explaining sex to kids in middle school or older, skip the euphemisms. “Sex is a very ambiguous term. We need to use very precise language,” says Schuster. Explain “vaginal,” “oral” or “anal” sex and that all three can spread diseases. (It’s OK to wait until high school age to bring up anal sex, he says. Phew.) Since girls, and now boys, can get the HPV vaccine as young as age nine, that’s also an opportunity to explain what it is and why they need it. (The shot protects against the four most common strains of HPV, which is the most widespread STD among teen girls and can cause cervical cancer.)

9. Explain what contraception can and can’t do. Let your kids know that while hormonal methods like the Pill prevent pregnancy, condoms protect against disease, says Montefiore’s Alderman. Unfortunately, the data seems to indicate that many of those who are sexually active at a young age use only one or neither. According to the study in Pediatrics, one in five girls who reported having only one lifetime sex partner already had a sexually transmitted infection. According to the CDC, only 16 percent of sexually active teens reported that they or their partner had used birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. (Sixty-one percent said they or their partner had used a condom during last sexual intercourse. But experts say teens should use both.)

10. Forget the scare tactics. “No kid is going to believe us at a certain point if all we do is talk about disease and pregnancy and sex is bad,” says Schuster. “I don’t think we want them terrified. We want them informed.” Don’t feel compelled to start your talks with warnings of STDs. “We want to be careful that the first conversations we have with our kids are not about disease and death,” says Madaras. Instead, even with the youngest kids, let them talk about their goal--whether it’s to open a beauty parlor or become a doctor—and explain how getting pregnant or sick could hamper their plans. Focus on their dreams, says Madaras, and they’re much less likely to put their future, or their health, at risk.

MY THOUGHTS

It's a good thing I don't have kids. This can be really chanllenging for moms and dads!