Short-sheeting our Kids

December 21 2007

“What hurts us the deepest teaches us the most,” my sister told me a few weeks ago. It sounds a lot like Nietzsche’s comment “that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

Things are changing.  If you don’t believe me check the way we communicate. Check the way we drive.  Check the way we even watch TV. There was a time when we didn’t have a TV. Families sat and listened to the radio. We created images of people we never saw and no matter what; they managed to fulfill whatever expectations we had. Then we were graced with TV, as we got to see the faces of the people we once drew, painted and colored in front of the radio. Initially, we didn’t have remotes, and parents depended on children to change the channel. It didn’t matter where the children sat.  If we needed the channel changed, we just had to tell the children to do it. And they did it.

What’s changed?

Well, in many cases, children today have their own TV, in their own room, which contributes to some of the disconnects in families today. Of course there are remotes, where we don’t have to get up to change the channel, but this modern technology still requires many times our kids to at least program the remote to the point we can use them. The significant thing is we remain connected. It’s not easy, but essential.

That’s what many of us realize, sometime too late.  But whatever it takes, I challenge you to find a way to stay connected. Sometimes when we lose that connection we hurt, but if we listen, we learn and try hard to not repeat mistakes we see others make, or we have made. It’s not easy to remain in the present.  As shared by me before, the ‘transcendental elements of fathering,’ creeps in as we allow our past or our future to affect how we deal with those things that help us bond. Avoiding being in the moment can result in pain that is reflected in many of the plans we try to make in helping our children grow.

Gandhi tells us that “we must be the change we want to see in the world.” That’s why I teach.  I teach because my students learn just as much from themselves as they learn from me. I teach because I learn as much from them as they think I teach them. I teach because in a society that is moving as fast as our society is moving, I need to hear what it is that my sons hear, so I can have a better ear to listen to their way of seeing things. And I need that; an additional ear when they come home because in most cases they have no one at school to whom they can relate.

And when you listen, it’s amazing what you hear. Some years ago in a group of 15 years old Hispanics 26% of them indicated they expected to attend college. It’s one thing to hear that, but upon listening to everything they had to say, the interview discovered that only 78% indicated the jobs they wanted required college. The point?  The end must always be in sight.  Why go to college if the job you want doesn’t require college? That’s one question.  But the better question is what is it I want to do and how do I prepare to do that.

These are questions you generally need to ask someone you can trust, and as much as I would like to think that many of our youth would ask their fathers, many don’t have a father around. Of students in grades 1 – 12, 39% live in homes without their biological father. Among teens, 67% lived with their biological father, but 91% live with their biological mothers. Is this important? Well, 85% of youth in jail and 71% of high school dropouts are from fatherless homes. That could be the reason 77.1% of adults 18 – 34 have unresolved issues with their fathers. That means they have not worked through issues that in some cases won’t even let the kids handle the remote. Yet fathers are important, particularly since in a 1999 study I did, middle-class fathers felt inadequate about what they know about parenting, but adequate about being able to parent. A subsequent 2001 study by Rohner and Veneziano found that father involvement is seen as just as important as mother involvement.

And even if fathers are not in the home on a regular basis, they still have an impact, as children whose non-resident fathers paid child support are more likely to get A’s, less likely to repeat a grade of be suspended from school. Fathers’ involvement cannot be overlooked, especially as you look as how boys struggle in school. Researchers tell us that 80% of drop-outs are boys. Boys earn 70% of Ds & Fs. They make up 2/3 of the special education classes. Of school suspensions 70% are boys.  Fast forward a few years and you realize the importance of the projections that for every 9 women graduating from college, there are only 7 men as Men on college campuses have declined 14% since 1976.

When you look at these facts, what is it that makes us stronger?  What is it teaching us?  I don’t have the answer, but I’m going to give you a few things to think about. If you have a son or daughter who is in school and have not started talking to them about what they’re going to do when they graduate from high school, then start talking. If you have a son or daughter and have not asked them what college they will attend, start asking. If you have a son or daughter who is a junior in high school and have not checked when the first opportunity for them to take either the SAT or ACT test, then start checking. Don’t be like some kids and get short-sheeted when they discovered they could not apply for scholarships because they had not taken the tests needed for the application. Think about these things as you raise your children, especially when you think about what you had to do to get where you wanted to be…and it didn’t kill you.

“For a father to reason with a child is fine if he can reach the child’s reason without losing his own.”
John Mason Brown
from Always my Dad calendar

Archie Wortham, Ph.D.
Husband of Suzie
Father of Jeremy & Myles
Educator & Columnist

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Bear the Burden Yourself

October 25 2007

“The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden himself,” Phillip Brooks said that. That statement helps me talk about a few things facing children in school. Particularly those who have children close to graduation, and helps present a new idea for legislators, administrators and teachers to consider.

Many of you may be in the throes of trying to help your child get ready for graduation. In some circles it’s called senioritis. You know what I mean! The young buck or starlet knows everything. They are only months from moving into a world we traveled years ago and are still trying to navigate. The difference is, they know everything. Feeling my drift? Well in the words of an old sergeant on ‘Hill Streets Blues,’ “it’s a jungle out there.” The proverbial question becomes…are they ready? Have we done all we can to get them there? What will we do if they fail? The answer to these is yes. Yes. Let them.

Whether they are ready, the fact remains: life doesn’t stop. From the moment they are born, they are destined to only be protected to the point we can manage. We can’t do everything, and if we could, what to say that what we’d do is the right thing. Writers talk about the parents who hover over their children like helicopters. It’s not good for the parents. It’s not good for the children. Most of all it’s not good for the colleges that protest over overprotecting mothers and fathers who refuse to let go. We have, in many cases, through the instant messaging, the instant gratification, and overly protectiveness created children who will not grow until we let them. As parents, many of us are so afraid we’ve failed them. I can’t answer why we feel that way. But I can offer an idea that has been implemented in Florida and has national implications. It’s called giving them control earlier in their academic careers.

“The law says the students need to be enrolled in a major, but that doesn’t mean they have to graduate with a major,” said Cheri Pierson Yecke, State Chancellor in Florida for kindergarten through 12th grade. This revolutionary program allows freshmen in high school to declare major. It encourages them to change their minds as they progress through high school, most importantly, it gives them the responsibility to choose and think about what they might be doing the rest of their lives. I first saw this on NBC news, and the comments I heard from the students was they loved it. It gave them an idea of seeing if what they thought might interest them, really did. And the beauty of this program is they [the students] had the flexibility to change their major if they didn’t like what they’d chosen. So by the time they were seniors, there was a better chance that the money they would spend ‘finding’ themselves in college may not be wasted. How does that translate? Provides optimal graduation rates and more productive workers doing something they have a talent and a love to do. If your senior has no idea what she or he wants to do with their lives, it might be a little late, but better late than never to discuss these alternatives.

What are some of these alternatives? Well if they have not started the application process: get started. With that is the process of getting tested, and by this I mean those tests that most colleges require: SAT [Scholastic Aptitude Test], or ACT [American College Test]. If you have not tested at least once by now, you are behind. If you choose to take only one test, I recommend the SAT. If your son or daughter has not discussed at least two options for colleges, start calling the school counselors and see what’s going on. If you have not visited with at least one of your child’s teacher, or emailed them, then before next week, do it. It’s not just lines of the Negro College Fund, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” There is no regard to whose mind it is.

Talking with one of the parents in the office where I work who has been through the rigors of the senior year I was comforted knowing I’m not alone in the attempt many young men and women go through as they try to distance themselves from mom and dad as freedom beckons them on the horizon. One of the difficulties to cope with is the pressures facing these young men and women. They are competing for college and university grants, loans and scholarships. They are competing with their peers who may not be going to college, have no aspiration to go and derive their vision of how they will be spending their post high school years by encouraging their friends not to go too far away…if at all. As parents we have to attack these issues head on and keep encouraging them that none of their friends are going to pay their rent, buy them cars, or raise their children. It’s a fact.

Parents should collaborate and every opportunity find parents with children of similar interest to get together, however that might happen. Parents should collaborate with the teachers as a follow up plan to keep their children focused. Having a degree plan as a freshman may not be on the horizon for your daughter or son’s school, but having college on the horizon is definitely something moms and dads can communicate to teachers, sons and daughters, and the parents of your son or daughter’s friends.

The bottom line is we cannot live our children lives. We can promote and encourage them, but we cannot live for them. Their burden is to tackle and defeat, and all we can do is find a way to energize them and say no when the time is right. Senioritis is a time for drawing the lines in the sand and positioning ourselves to dig in and hold out. If you need a mentoring organization find one in your city, or go to a Boys and Girls Club as they help young boys and girls realize their potential by increasing the awareness of what they can do. It’s what we adults do as we groom young men and women into adulthood, particularly men into fathers.

“Children need strength to lean on, a shoulder to cry on, and an example to learn from.”

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Dad Talk

October 25 2007

“Men are crafted by the women who love or hate them.” Ladies put that in your next casserole. Think about it when you don’t get the card, flowers, or honey done list. This column is designed to make its readers think.

Studies show that men have a tendency toward violence. This violence is measured in three forms, violence against women, other men, and themselves. Think about it. We hear about domestic violence. We hear about drive-bys, fathers and sons or brothers who can’t get along. And the saddest of all, is the violence directed inwardly, and in some cases this violence is manifested through one or the other two. We don’t like ourselves, so we take it out on our wives, our dates, or men we don’t even know. And why? Because men compress their emotions. We don’t generally share. Author of “Locking Arms,” Stu Weber tells us to get a good male friend. John Eldridge discusses it in his book “Wild at Heart,” where men learn to become manlier and take on a mantle of manhood women desire. We often hear behind every successful man, there is a woman holding him up, or maybe pushing him.

I call it the “Eve-curse.” That’s right. This is something I talked about a couple of years ago, and I’d like to revisit it. The “Eve-curse” started with our first love. Even though God forbade man, not the woman, to not eat the apple, did we listen? Eve was tempting. Women are tempting. Women want to be like God. Some may want to be God. But they are smart. They can’t do that alone. They need a patsy, an accomplice, a brute who is too dumb to realize the error of his ways until it’s too late. And what do we men do? Rather than stand up to them and take the lumps where they fall, we blame the same women we vowed to support, love and honor, and in many cases obey. You think Hillary will have any problem running the country if she’s elected? She knows how to do it. This brings me back to my earlier point. Men are crafted. Women know our strengths and our weakness, and they build upon that, the same way Eve did.

And you look at the men we strive to be like, and you will find a strong wife, or mother somewhere in the wings who crafted them. However, some mothers raise their sons to be babies, because these mothers want to be needed. They do not want any woman to be more important then she is. They don’t really want their sons to leave home. Thus lots of wives throughout the world have the proverbial plight of wives like Deborah on “Everybody Loves Raymond,” with a mother-in-law she can never measure up to, because her husband keeps remembering how he was babied, and how his wife refuses to baby a grown man. In Italy the influx of boomerang sons is the greatest in the world.

But mothers can’t shelter all the blame. Men? Those of you who refuse to grow up should be ashamed of yourself, and if you are not working with your wives to dispel the myth of “not as good as mom,” then you deserve any ill-treatment you feel you get. Get up off your lazy butts. Get in the kitchen, the laundry room and teach your sons what Adam didn’t understand. Women are here to help us see the light, and as fathers, it is our responsibility to carve out a legacy where our sons are capable of being self-sufficient, loving, and highest of all, not a ‘momma’s boy. Who wants a momma’s boy? In this day and age, not even momma.

And mommas? The ones who let this happen? There is an angst of anger you give the women who inherit men who don’t know how to pick up after themselves…and unfortunately these men who are not used to being mocked, criticized and corrected react uncharacteristically; perhaps violently; or going out trying to find someone else who will think they are great rather than realize they are an inconsiderate, lazy, desensitized slob who needs to grow up. Infidelity starts at home, and it can become generational if not acknowledged and dealt with.

Deal with it at the start. Note how the men react around their mothers. Notice how the mothers pamper or treat them. Notice what type of father these young men have. Is his dad at home? Does he help around the house? And young men, note the type of mother your potential partner has as a role model. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Remember…the relationship between man and woman is one of the most sacred that God created. He may have created man first, to make sure he had it perfect when he made woman, but remember it was out of man’s side that he took woman. And that’s where men and women belong, side by side, and that equality means doing things that complement each other. That equality means showing respect, being proud to be next to your mate.

And that’s all men want. We want to be respected. We need to be respected. Some time we don’t understand those things that are important to women. It’s not because we don’t care. It’s because we are stupid. It’s because we care enough to try to be the man you want us to be, even if you won’t tell us. So tell us. You tell us we are stupid and clueless. But you won’t tell us the clues we need to find the key to your happiness. Some times we are the way we are because of our fathers. If our fathers didn’t have a good concept of how to deal with our moms, how are we? Rather than blame us, help us. It’s humbling, and it’s tiring. But when you think about how incomplete we are without each other…that answers why we have each other, or in some cases, leave each other.

So mothers and wives, realize we know you have the power. That’s argument ended with the apple. Just realize that with power comes great responsibility. Use it carefully, beginning with loving your husband first…empowering him to be a good example as a husband and father, as both of you craft men who love their wives and their children as it God intended.

“A child’s hand in yours–what tenderness and power it arouses. You are
instantly the very touchstone of wisdom and strength.”
Marjorie Holmes from Always my Dad calendar

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Dad Talk: “Men To Fathers”

August 10 2007

“History is there so we don’t repeat it,” is the thought for this week.

As school opens, there are so many thoughts that invade our separate CPUs. CPU? That’s a new term that’s entered our vernacular that helps us think of our brain as a big computer. Think of it, our brain as a big computer that potentially can crash. Think of your brain that way we operate separate central processing units that occasionally are called upon to store information that hopefully keeps us from making the same mistake our parents made, our friends made, even our country made.

Tragedy strikes in many forms, whether it’s wind and rain associated with a Katrina, a bridge falling in Minnesota, or a family torn apart because of broken vows, ill-conceived reactions to boundaries established by a mom or dad trying to raise a teenager who can’t understand the need for a curfew.

There are three things I’d like to address this week. I want to first focus on events that have happened that some of you may be aware, and some may not then challenge you as you reflect on the three events to do something. I’ll provide you with an opportunity to effect a difference in your home, school or community.

The first has to do with a book that invaded not only our home, but millions of homes across the world. Harry Potter. As I waited patiently to read “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows,” the last book in the seven-book series, it became obvious there was an opportunity to educate my sons on the importance of insight. It became obvious there was an opportunity to talk with them about the importance of experience. It became obvious as I read the last book, there was a teachable moment I could not pass up as I saw my younger son begin to reread all the books. If you know how a story ends, then it might affect the decisions you make at the beginning. Without revealing anything about the last book, after reading it one realizes that “All perceptions are real, they may not be valid, but they must be dealt with.” People do things for reasons they can’t always tell us, but when the truth is revealed, the revelation causes us to realize, if we listen to those who know the ending, maybe we should trust them more to find a better way in our journey through life. Harry Potter is a great series. There are tremendous values shared about friendship, family and truth. The last book makes one realize you shouldn’t judge someone, or their actions, until you’ve stood in their shoes.

The myth about boys? Time magazine’s 6 August issue emphasizes that all the hoopla about boys being in trouble is a myth. Though the author, David Von Drehle, provides information on how things are not as bad as everyone had been proclaiming, he doesn’t dismiss the fact that some of our boys, particularly black boys, are in trouble. Unfortunately some people will read Mr. Von Drehle overly generalized statement take it out of context without reading the whole article. While admitting that girls are doing better than boys in many areas, and that girls continue to outdistance boys by achieving better grades, having higher graduation rates, and in some cities women are earning just as much if not more than men, Von Drehle doesn’t state why the improvement, or why he challenges the myth of their being a boys crisis. Rather, he comments that the positive changes that have occurred have resulted from there being a clarion call that boys needed help. Don’t let this attempt at making us feel better let us forget how boys got into to trouble in the first place. We must remain diligent! We must not forget! Parents still need to be involved, particularly fathers in the lives of their boys. Teachers still need to find ways to encourage boys to continue their education. Researchers of the 1990s, who surfaced the issues of boys needing help, need to continue researching and sharing the models that are helping turn things around, otherwise history can repeat itself again.

My third issue? Well, it hard to believe that one day you get in your car, drive a route you’ve driven every day for years that the bridge you have lost count the times you’ve crossed will collapse. That of course happened in Minnesota. People died. Some survived. But the point to be made here is that this bridge had been listed as “structurally deficient” seventeen years ago. A few years ago, try 1950, the levees in New Orleans were listed in need of repair. The point is… ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away. There were reasons for us to be concerned about our young men and the importance of what a man being involved in their life can do. That’s the lesson we should remember. Whether it fictionalize as Dumbledore and Harry Potter, a teacher and a student, or a father and his daughter or son, it’s a fact! Moreover, we should not let an article lull us to sleep believing things are fixed.

Now here comes your opportunity to do something. What are you doing the first day of school? Do you or your neighbor have a child who is in school? If for no other reason to see the facility, meet the teachers, or meet another male, taking your child to school is a way to get involved. It sends a message.

If you’ve not heard about the “Million Father March” that’s happening across America, you’ve just heard about it. It’s a movement established to address the lack of involvement of men in schools. It’s a movement established to validate the importance of men in the lives of their home, communities, especially their schools. It’s a movement that I’d like for you to contact your schools and find out what they know about it. If they don’t know anything tell them to contact Mr. Phillip Jackson at the website, www.blackstarproject.org. No one can provide for our children the way we can, and if you want the schools to do that, then stay at home. Otherwise, contact schools in your district and ask them, what are they doing to provide a venue for fathers to get involve in their child’s education? If they can’t give you an answer, then you have just unearthed another bridge that may be structurally deficient as we work to grow boys into men into fathers.

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