Month: June 2017

The secret to raising boys from this fathers perspective.

theycallmebetty7 Comments

The secret to raising boys from my perspective is quite simple. 

Get married, have wife give birth to boy, tell boy he is wrong, repeat! 

Now before all of you, everyone deserves a trophy, what about their self esteem, let the child raise itself free from the oppressive parent to find their unbridled passion in life parents jump my shit! Let me explain.

It’s my experience that girls are smarter, and quicker to understand the learned message no matter the age. They are not trying to emulate you the male role model in any way. My daughter looks up to me, respects my opinion, and puts forth effort to make changes whenever conflict or mistakes occur. She is an ever evolving, growing, expanding being who has aspired to become her own person following the teachings of her combined parental figures from the monent her chubby little knees could carry her unassisted across our kitchen floor. Oh don’t get me wrong she can clam up, lock down and square that jaw with steely reserve when she wants to like no other! But she never stops learning. 

My boys on the other hand would light fireworks from their asses at the drop of a hat! 

Yep from the minute all three of them could walk it has been a constant parental repetition of; STOP! DONT DONT DO THAT! WHAT THE HOLY HELL HAVE YOU DONE!! Or my personal favorite; AND YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA, WHY??? Now some are better than others, but the old adage; boys will be boys always plays true. 

Snakes and frogs either left to scare mom or shoved in her face as she opens the door! Fish guts on the floor, rotting carcasses left forgotten in the basement for taxidermy, dirty clothes scattered across the house that apparently belongs to no one. 

Tools spread across the shop that no one has used, broken ranch equipment that no one has touched, trucks that are not running right and have never, ever made that noise before as enough mud falls from their wheel wells to build a city of indigenous huts! 

Ah yes boys. 

They will tell you from the minute they learn something, anything that you have been doing it all wrong. They have it all figured out, don’t need your advice, cannot for the life of them understand why you don’t feel they are ready to head out on their own, or take over some of the major projects in need of completion. You sir are old, frail and in need of stepping aside for the young, naturally accomplished male. 

They have no real understanding of time, and commitment because everything comes so easy for them in their minds. They are the true masters of their domain. Yet they are doing it all wrong! Their thinking is all wrong, the mistakes being made are from being wrong and at times are disasterous! 

Thusly my job as a male parental figure is simple. 

Raise them, tell them they are wrong, repeat. 

Because if I told them they were right they would never be mad at me. If they were never mad at me they really wouldn’t listen to what I have to say. Nothing sticks in a youthful male craw when testosterone is involved more than hearing your dad say you are wrong! 

That is when your boy will do everything he can to prove YOU are wrong. Then and only then will you be proven right, and with a celebratory beer in your hand all the wrong doings of your childhood come full circle. You are then stuck with the sound of your dads voice  echoing in the back of your head with witty one liners like: you know son if you had half a brain it would be an improvement! Or How did two average morons like your mother and I produce such a fucking genius? 

Ahhhh good times, good memories. Yes that much cherished sound of the old man reverberating through my brain, calling me a dumbass! It truly is the circle of life!

So there it is, my secret to raising boys! Tell them they are wrong, watch them fail, slap your own forehead while rubbing a little more hair from you dome, embrace the grey hair that comes with raising boys and relish in one of two things. The joy of when they do it right (your way) and succeed, along with the joy of telling them on that rare occasion they did it their way and it worked that maybe, just this one time they weren’t such an idiot after all. 

Remember dads sharing knowledge is caring and as a father the stronger your repertoire the easier to produce disappointment along with the better the one liners will be your son uses when he has a son. 

Dumbass….

Thankful to be my kids dad

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Fathers Day

A day centered upon, or celebrating being a father. I have always wondered how this national phenomenon came to fruition and after a little a research I found my answer. So before I ramble on with a long overdue edition of “Betty” let’s take a moment to enlighten our minds. If you already knew the answer please don’t ruin it for everyone else.

The nation’s first Father’s Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910, in the state of Washington. However, it was not until 1972–58 years after President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day official–that the day honoring fathers became a nationwide holiday in the United States.

Mother’s Day: Inspiration for Father’s Day

The “Mother’s Day” we celebrate today has its origins in the peace-and-reconciliation campaigns of the post-Civil War era. During the 1860s, at the urging of activist Ann Reeves Jarvis, one divided West Virginia town celebrated “Mother’s Work Days” that brought together the mothers of Confederate and Union soldiers.

Did You Know?

There are more than 70 million fathers in the United States.

However, Mother’s Day did not become a commercial holiday until 1908, when–inspired by Jarvis’s daughter, Anna Jarvis, who wanted to honor her own mother by making Mother’s Day a national holiday–the John Wanamaker department store in Philadelphia sponsored a service dedicated to mothers in its auditorium.

Thanks in large part to this association with retailers, who saw great potential for profit in the holiday, Mother’s Day caught on right away. In 1909, 45 states observed the day, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution that made the second Sunday in May a holiday in honor of “that tender, gentle army, the mothers of America.”

Origins of Father’s Day

The campaign to celebrate the nation’s fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm–perhaps because, as one florist explained, “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.”

On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation’s first event explicitly in honor of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December’s explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, but it was a one-time commemoration and not an annual holiday.

The next year, a Spokane, Washington, woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on June 19, 1910.

Slowly, the holiday spread. In 1916, President Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, D.C. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day.

Today, the day honoring fathers is celebrated in the United States on the third Sunday of June: Father’s Day 2017 occurs on June 18; the following year, Father’s Day 2018 falls on June 17.

In other countries–especially in Europe and Latin America–fathers are honored on St. Joseph’s Day, a traditional Catholic holiday that falls on March 19.

Father’s Day: Controversy and Commercialism

Many men, however, continued to disdain the day. As one historian writes, they “scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products–often paid for by the father himself.”

During the 1920s and 1930s, a movement arose to scrap Mother’s Day and Father’s Day altogether in favor of a single holiday, Parents’ Day. Every year on Mother’s Day, pro-Parents’ Day groups rallied in New York City’s Central Park–a public reminder, said Parents’ Day activist and radio performer Robert Spere, “that both parents should be loved and respected together.”

Paradoxically, however, the Great Depression derailed this effort to combine and de-commercialize the holidays. Struggling retailers and advertisers redoubled their efforts to make Father’s Day a “second Christmas” for men, promoting goods such as neckties, hats, socks, pipes and tobacco, golf clubs and other sporting goods, and greeting cards.

When World War II began, advertisers began to argue that celebrating Father’s Day was a way to honor American troops and support the war effort. By the end of the war, Father’s Day may not have been a federal holiday, but it was a national institution.

In 1972, in the middle of a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign, Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday at last. Today, economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Father’s Day gifts.

~The History Channel/A&E~

 

Ok 1 billion a year on father’s day gifts? Where is my cut of that pie!! Of course Father’s Day was derived from Mother’s Day because without mom’s we would all be lost! And lastly its just like men to deny any recognition for becoming a father! There are so many baby momma and deadbeat dad jokes there I’m going to let you create your own! I do think an all parents day would be kind of cool, you know a consolidation of the whole thing. But that’s neither here nor there at this moment.

I am proud to be the father of four awesome kids! I know everyone thinks their children are awesome which makes that last remark a bit of a cliché, but in my world it is true.

My children are wicked smart, each in their own way. They are personable as hell, compassionate, loving and kind. They are also stubborn, temperamental, cranky, selfish and can be a complete pain in my ass when they want too leaving me with ulcers and migraines! YAY PARENTHOOD!!

But you know what? I have said it before and I will say it again. I have always wanted to be a dad so I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t know why I have always wanted to be a dad, it is something that has burned inside of me forever. The thought of raising, caring for and mentoring children through adulthood has always seemed to be the ultimate human responsibility. A challenge worth accepting.

Now as we know parenthood is hugely romanticized on television and in the movies. (Thank you Disney and Lifetime) Parenthood is also used to create lifestyle fantasies within the advertising industry to help ease you into parenting via the almighty dollar. But those of us who have walked that line know it is all crap! A child’s room does not need to be perfect, painted any specific color or arranged to create the greatest learning curve or challenge them mentally! They will love you no matter what! There is no way, no matter how you sell it to ever make changing a diaper, disposing of human feces, cleaning up pee or wiping spittle and vomit from your clothing ever look romantic or enticing! Although the endless humor that comes from these events can be priceless. You do not need to go on the perfect family vacations every year spending thousands of dollars to create a picturesque childhood of joy. The reality is the only thing you need is love, patience, creativity and a good glass of wine or beer at the end of a day.

What parenting is? Parenting is hands down the hardest job I have ever held and I have held quite a few temporary career choices that quite simply sucked ass! They can and will drive you crazy these loves of your life, apples of your eye, chips from the old block! There will be days you just want to run and hide but you don’t, even though every fiber in your body is screaming to do so! In the end you know deep down inside running away accomplished nothing because in reality what you would be running and hiding from is not your children, but yourself as (whether you like it or not) they are a mirrored reflection of you. Whoa! Mind blown huh?

Parenting is the most rewarding experience in your life if you put in the time. Don’t expect wonderful results with minimal effort. Parenting is learning how to turn disappointment into positivity. Parenting is learning how to say no when the child within you wants so desperately to say yes! Parenting is standing your ground until it is time to no longer stand that ground. Parenting is understanding why your parents raised you the way they did. Parenting is allowing them the privilege of failing or losing at something while letting them figure out the best way to recover with a little advice from you. Parenting is to give every bit of yourself to another little human being without (and this is very important) forgetting to put your significant other first. Keeping your relationship alive inspires trust and comfort within your children, and teaches them how to become good partners. Parenting is admitting when you are wrong, in front of your kids not just to your partner. Parenting is learning how and when to apologize. Parenting is teaching your children to laugh, at everything. Parenting is showing never ending love, even when you want to strangle them. Parenting is a testament to your foot print left here on earth for all to see.

I am proud to be the parent of our four children. They truly inspire me each and every day to try my hardest, be the best dad I can be, learn from my mistakes and do my best to evolve as a father and human being. I may not always have the answer for them but I will try to get it. I will always be there for them when they fall, helping to guide their way with advice whether warranted or not and I will no matter what love them unconditionally while doing my best to stand behind any life decision they choose.

Cody, Jake, Jessica and Parker thank you for being my children and allowing me to become a part of Fathers Day simply by becoming your dad.

And to my dad (who is no longer with us) and all the dads who ever took an interest in me, looking over me, correcting me when I was wrong and whooping my ass when I was completely out of line, thank you. Thank you for taking this very special job seriously, and knowing in your heart that to become a father to one, you inadvertently became a dad to all. It takes a village.

Happy Father’s Day everyone!