People tend to look at rich people and wish they had their money. The nice car, house, bank account, amazing vacations, the yacht, things, and more things. And, we tend to think rich people must have worked really hard to get those nice things, and some of them have. We tend to think they deserve those nice things, and some of them do. We may even wonder what’s wrong with us, why can’t we have those nice things? Why can’t we be rich? But rarely do we consider character when we view the rich. Their clothes seem to tell us all we want to hear. The glitz and the glamour blinds us to what’s beneath.

Nobody questions too much how rich people get their money? How about the CEO who makes millions and millions of dollars while their full-time employees can’t adequately feed their families or live in a decent place to the point where they need food stamps and subsidized housing? Or the manufactures who make inferior products and sells an extended warranty WHEN you are buying the new product. Or, the investor crooks who make a profit by coming up with schemes, some legal, to get your hard earned money away from you. Or, companies with a “charitable” arm that use that leeway to reap profits and exploit people? We have people in companies who hide behind the company’s legal entity to do horrible things, often to their customers, and they get away with it. And, they make money, lots of it. Ask yourself: do you really want to do what it takes to have money when you have to steal, deceive and be unfair to get it?

Yet, a person with money is usually considered smart, someone to be looked up to. We give so much deference to people who have money. We want to be in their presence more. Why? Are we hoping they might share some of their wealth with us? With this whole 99% v. 1% thing, that’s not working out very well. Maybe we show deference to help us make the “right” connections. Well, seems they like connecting with each other. So why do we do it?

We are seeing what lies behind the lives of some of the rich and famous. We see the decadence; the parties flowing with drugs and girls. The illegal enterprises they control while they attempt to keep their image squeaky clean. The biggest mistake we make is confusing being rich monetarily with being rich. We need to stop giving deference to people just because they have money. We need to see behind the green. Better yet, we need to redefine the word rich so it includes not just things but character.

PARENTING  – Part 2

And the person I have given birth to made me see myself in ways I never knew existed. Here is this person I am supposed to love unconditionally yet I have used guilt, anger, shouting and other controlling ways to get my child to do what I want him to do. When I couldn’t think of other ways to get him to comply, there was always “because I said so,” even though the parenting class and the book I read while he was in 8th grade, and myself, said that phrase was a definite no no.

So, looking back, as my son is getting ready to go off to college, here is the biggest the lesson I have learned. My left over emotional baggage, known and unknown, crept out at unexpected times to shape the relationship I care about most in this world, the one with my son. My baggage didn’t go away, just because I had a child; my baggage didn’t go away because I am seeking to love my child unconditionally. I think too many times we see our children as a way to start over our lives, a clean slate, a way to get and give love, a notion of finding that one great true loving relationship, but the reality is there is no starting over, we start from where we are. And if we are unhealthy in our relationship with ourselves and others, that follows us into parenthood no matter how much we don’t want it to. Ok, enough of that stuff, here is the rest of what I learned/am learning.

Values do not change, we have to instill them even when we seem like the odd ball – when they are children, we are parents first, not friends.

Give the lessons indirectly when you can, especially when in high school because by then my voice was a trigger to stop listening. Interject believes in casual conversations more than the “let’s sit down and talk” moments where you are getting upset and they are giving you that look.

Live by example. If one of your lessons is don’t lie- you don’t lie. Kids are very observant, at every age.

Balance the attention to school work with finding out how your child is emotionally.

Stop being so analytical. Love does not require analysis. I am learning to let him come to me more instead of trying to prod and poke his inner thoughts out of him.

Listen more, talk less. I was so busy espousing my wisdom that I neglected to realize that my son actually has a brain of his own and, despite my years of experience, HE actually makes quite a bit of sense.

Do your best to love the person in front of you. Pay attention to that person not the person you want or think they should be. Explore THEIR talents and interests. Be careful not to try to live vicariously; this is not a do over of your life. Kids come to have their own journey.

Finally, give yourself a break, if you are trying to be a good parent, you are 90% there. And if that isn’t comforting, remember- it seems everybody hates their parents. Well … that’s not very comforting. What I am really trying to say is: working on being a kind loving person, in general, is going to be the best solution to being a great parent.

I have said it before and I will say it again: parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done. I found out I was pregnant at 35 years old. By then, I had resigned myself to not giving birth to a child because it was way past my initial idea ‘to have 4 children by the time I was 30’. After I found out I was pregnant, I bought “the” book about pregnancy and another to get a different perspective. I changed my diet to eating healthy, no alcohol, no junk food, no caffeine, except I couldn’t get away from chocolate, I would still indulge now and then. I sang to the baby inside me, his father talked to my tummy and in the end we had a wonderful boy. And, then came parenthood.

When my son was an infant and a toddler, parenting was a breeze. My son, hands down, had me at my best. I cared for this little precious thing with patience and love. There was only one time, he was less than 2 years old, when I even recall having a sense of frustration from giving all of myself: I let out an almost guttural sound that was so deep within me it forced me to acknowledge that taking care of a toddler requires a lot.

The first significant change to my parenthood came when my son was almost 3. I decided it was time for him to interact with other people on a daily basis. I chose a Montessori school; I hoped it would teach him enough independence to withstand my helicopter mom ways.

During his first 3 years, I would run to his beck and call, and prevent him from doing anything that may cause him physical harm, like climbing too high (which for me probably meant an inch off the ground) and his father was forbidden from throwing him up in the air. Funny enough, at 4 years old, I was the one who ended up giving my son a permanent scar on his back. He was on a counter and was about to fall. When I caught him my fingernails dug into his back and made a horrible looking scratch down his back, the kind of scratch that I am sure made the people at his school wonder if something was going on at home that they needed to know about.

It was when my son started middle school that parenting became not so much fun. By then, he wasn’t listening to and doing the majority of what I said without question. He was actually insisting on moving from my precious little “thing” to an independent thinking person. I was not ready for that. I was not ready to have my sweet little boy try to turn into his own person. That’s when I was forced to begin to see a person separate from me, not my son, but the person I had given birth to.

Until Tomorrow

Change. Yeah. I wish I could Dream of Jeannie (an old TV show for those of you who don’t know) and have one of my wishes granted. Change me- would be my wish. Better yet, I wish I could go within, decide I am going to change and immediately change. Unfortunately, I haven’t found change to be that easy. And I am not referring to changing the deep-seated hidden patterns we don’t realize we have that seem to defeat our every attempt at change. I am talking about easier stuff, like eating properly and exercising.

It’s not that I don’t realize I need to eat better. I need to eat better; I get it. Eating green is good for you. However, eating one salad every six months, usually at a restaurant is not what I call proper eating. There is salad in the refrigerator right now, spoiling, but I am going to eat it tomorrow. As to exercising, it’s not like I don’t know I need to be consistent with exercising. That wonderful workout I did 8 months ago, well, I may need to do that a little more often. The gym is less than 5 minutes away, less than 5 minutes, but I am going to start running consistently on the treadmill- when? – tomorrow!

Even when I know I need to change, tomorrow seems to be my favorite word. And even though I know tomorrow is not guaranteed, I spend a lot of time ‘going to change’ … tomorrow. I am really trying to figure out what it will take for tomorrow to become today.

So that’s why this month I am tackling my apparent inability to change simply things. First step, I have decided to write down everything that goes into my mouth and the times I exercise. That will help; everybody says that. If you write it down, you will do better. Yet, I can’t seem to find a pen. Ok, I don’t need a pen, I can put it in the notes section on my I-Pad. Oh boy, out of juice, I will do it tomorrow. Are you there with me now? Change for me, is not that easy. Tomorrow still seems to be my favorite word.

And then I finally noticed something. I have been eating salads more often than once every six months and I have been working out on average 3 times per week. Not as much, nor as intensively as I say I am committed to in my head but more than I give myself credit for. It seems my intention and desires are breaking down my tomorrow walls without me realizing it.

In addition, I added a new strategy. When I think about a salad, I go eat it right away. When I think about exercising, if feasible, I do it right away. “Right now” is making me forget about tomorrow. And for those times when my intention and right now fail me, I turn to those thoughts in my head that say I am too tired to work out or just one more cup of ice cream and say to those thoughts — “Enough of you!”