Five Rules for Parents: A Path to Normalcy and Civil Behavior

               Five Rules for Parents: A Path to Normalcy and Civil                                                    Behavior

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/27/18

            With apologies to Canadian Jordan B. Peterson, whose new book “12 Rules For Life” is setting the publishing world on fire, I here set forth some rules which I believe can help stop school shootings, moderate our political discourse, and foster harmony in our homes.

            That’s a big order, but please note I said “help,” not cure.  Right now what we need is for someone to yell SOS!  There are no quick fixes for a society in which parents are obeying children.  A cure does exist, but unfortunately it will take time for the country to realize that it has embraced philosophies that aren’t working.

If you think all psychologists are head-in-the-clouds individuals, meet psychologist Jordan Peterson.  His book is sub-titled “An Antidote to Chaos.”  The good doctor is from Toronto and teaches psychology at the University of Toronto and Harvard University.  Peterson is a far cry from Dr. Benjamin Spock whose Spock-marks can still be seen on the grandchildren of the grandparents who purchased over 50 million copies of his books on childrearing.

Spock counseled permissiveness and instant gratification.  Even minister Norman Vincent Peale, a guru for positive thinking, spoke out against the Spock gospel.  And so does Peterson. In Peterson’s world there are some ancient truths that can and must be applied to life’s modern problems.

It is in this spirit of immutable truths versus moral relativism that I submit some rules of my own.  Sorry, but unlike Peterson who states all of his rules positively (“Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world”), all of mine begin with “Don’t.”  Surely adults can take a few “Don’ts” without turning into teenagers and thinking “Rules?  More Rules?”   In fact, by using the blunt word “Don’t,” I am heeding Peterson’s Rule 10, “Be precise in your speech.”

My rules are gleaned from 52 years of teaching high school and college kids, inside of which was a 31-year period of raising my own children.  Having seen the results of fatherlessness, permissiveness, divorce, and now helicopter parents (yes, even of college freshmen), I believe I can say I’ve seen enough to draw some comparisons.

Rule 1 springs from all of the school gun violence.  It reads: Don’t ever think that changing one’s environment will change the human heart.  A pig in the parlor is still a pig.  “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” stated a 1^st century figure.  Work on shaping your child’s heart (mindset, values) long before he goes to school.  It takes a strong home to help a child or teenager withstand the influences of other children and teens.  Gun control will not change the untrained heart or the sick mind.  Morality is inextricably tied to one’s belief system.  Consider the recent words of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, “We’ve got to work on the human heart.”  That means teach right and wrong.

Rule 2: Don’t fall for any books or articles on parenting that speak of the “various hues” of parenting or of “re-casting parenting.”  There are no hues.  Parenting doesn’t need to be “re-cast.” It needs to be practiced.  Be the boss of your kids and enjoy it.  They will see your joy and your confident posture.  They will also see your love and authority.

Rule 3: Don’t divorce.  But don’t dare fuss or fight in front of your children or within hearing distance, either.  Let your last child reach 19 and then divorce if you must.  Divorce has been a scourge in America, producing sad children, mad teenagers, and aimless college students.  Ask any teacher.  America’s divorce rate hovers at 50%. Half of America’s home are being dissolved.  So guns are the problem?

Rule 4: Don’t neglect getting your children around their grandparents.  Today’s youth know nothing about old people.  They are being allowed to wallow in youth culture, all the while captivated and captured by technology.  Require them to communicate with their grandparents.  If they resist, remind them of who paid for the breakfast they just ate.  Be a benevolent, loving dictator.

Rule 5: Don’t groom too much or push your child into a line of work he or she is averse to.  You will kill his or her joy.  I have seen countless parents almost destroy their teenager’s spirit because “we know better than they do what they’re good at.”  Too many teens today are absolutely joyless because of eager parents who wish to live vicariously through their children.

Fragility is the mark of modern parents.  Fragility does not equal love, and love, also, is what too many children are missing.

Roger Hines

5/23/18

             

“A Pox on Both Your Houses,” or So Said 63 Million Voters

     “A Pox on Both Your Houses,” or So Said 63 Million Voters

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/20/18

            In the Shakespeare play, “Romeo and Juliet,” a far more serious work than readers first realize, the character Mercutio has convinced his friend Romeo to forget his cares and join him at a masquerade ball.

            Romeo, a Montague, is in love with Juliet who is from the Capulet family.  But the two families are feuding; therefore, the possibility of the two young people ever having a relationship seems remote.  The day after the ball, Romeo finds himself in trouble with Tybalt, a Capulet.  Mercutio intercedes, fights Tybalt, and is stabbed by Tybalt’s sword.  His life fading, Mercutio yells, “A pox on both your houses,” thus expressing his ill will for the two families whose mutual animosity had led to no good, and divided the city of Verona.

            Let’s see, two houses (political parties), feuding (constant bickering), disdain for each other (the last presidential election), and a pox (a vicious desire for both houses to bug off). Yes, politics is downstream from culture, including a culture’s literature.  Just as the Montagues and Capulets came to be held in disdain for their fruitless contentions, so have America’s two major political parties come to be viewed as distant, bearing little more than a dime’s worth of difference, and showing no concern for limited government.  

            What else explains the Rust Belt’s support of a Republican candidate in 2016 who played down party and did just about everything his own way?  Why the increasing support for President Trump in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan?  In the words of sportscaster Howard Cosell, “Who’da thought’a?”

            Easy answer.  63 million voters “thought’a.”  In doing so, they confounded the pollsters, pushed the media into dark depression, and gave hope to those whom we call ordinary Americans.  Ordinary Americans, of course, have never been ordinary.  Instead of sitting around tables in front of cameras in coat and tie or resplendent dresses and spouting opinions (something actually anybody can do with just a minimal amount of attention to daily “news”), ordinary Americans have kept America ticking.

            Think about it.  Grocery stores must be kept stocked, our children must be schooled, our heating and cooling systems installed, vehicles attended to, criminals apprehended, fires put out, surgeries performed, teeth extracted, roofs repaired, computers also, houses painted, garbage picked up, local communities governed, gasoline (and everything else you can name) transported, automobiles built, clothes made, insurance policies prepared, legal drugs dispensed, restaurant food served, fields plowed, animals fed, articles written, cases argued, light lines restored, households kept running, and the dead buried.

            The only thing ordinary about those who perform such work is their constancy. But that constancy and seeming sameness is actually glorious.  It’s a Norman Rockwell painting of America at work, an inspiring snapshot of a free people who labor daily.  The importance of that work and the skills it requires are quite extraordinary.

            “Work” is a beautiful word.  As a noun, it’s the name we have given to gainful employment.  Symbolically, we have often referred to Joe Lunchbox, but that’s woefully out of date.  Men and women alike are keeping the nation ticking.

            The 2016 presidential election was a revolt of America’s workers.  See for yourself on the election map.  Compare and contrast the red to the blue.  The red, which carried the day, is rural/small town America plus the surprising industrial Midwest whose population centers helped secure victory, giving a shout out to a candidate who was finally speaking their language, particularly on jobs.  Jobs.  You know.  Work.  Think about that, too, and then ask yourself the question: Why is it that we never see protests at trade schools or two-year technical colleges?

            The answer is simple.  Who has time to protest when you’ve got your mind on getting yourself ready to feed yourself and a family?  Something is going on at colleges that feeds protests.  Wonder what it is.

            Actually, it’s the loss of the work ethic and the wallowing in esoteric subject matter that keeps college kids in the clouds.  Mastery of material has given way to “social/political engagement.”

            2016 was not a reformation or transformation.  It was nothing that deep.  It was a simple revolt, as in “Bug off, you establishment types.  We want a different guy or gal who will be authentic, talk jobs, and get out of the clouds.  We don’t care if he or she is a billionaire or somewhat unorthodox.  Help us get to work.  Protect our borders.”

            The death of Romeo – caused by the feud – led the Montagues and Capulets to come to their senses.  The question is whether or not Democrats and Republicans will do the same and start listening to “ordinary folks.”

Roger Hines

5/16/18

             

             

The Family, the Culture, and Sports

                       The Family, the Culture, and Sports

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/13/18

            How much professional coaches are paid is none of my business.  I can stay away from their games in protest if I think that salaries or tickets are too high.  But what Georgia’s tax-supported universities pay their coaches is my business as well as that of almost 10 million other Georgians.

            If UGA coach Kirby Smart’s new 7-year, $49 million contract is paid even in small part with tax money, I do protest its exorbitance.  Even if part of the salary comes from televised games and other goodies, taxpayers are still providing the university for the coach’s team to play at.  Since it takes a village to fund a big college coach’s salary, seems to me the villagers have a right to know where every dollar of the salary comes from.

            The national salary range for professors with a doctor’s degree is $51,855 - $151,284.  This fact simply makes questions about priorities (academics vs. athletics) and the wise, fair use of public funds dance around in my head.

            Yes, sports are a religion, not just across the state line at you know where, but in Georgia as well.  

              We all know about the shameful excesses of college sports.  College and professional coaches make millions a year, partly because of the support of countless young dads who must take out a small loan to take their two sons to a ballgame.

            As for many professional athletes, their egos are apparently greater than the courage of their team owners and league commissioners.  Imagine any employer being fearful to state clearly what his or her employees may or may not do while on the job.  Yet, NFL owners apparently have a mortal fear of telling their players (employees) they must respect the national anthem while they are at work. 

 Quite a few pro athletes were lifted out of poverty in the amount of time it took to sign their names, only to soon join their team mates in challenging their boss’s authority.  It’s the bosses who are really to blame.  The word boss used to mean something.

            In spite of these excesses, particularly the cowardly inaction of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, sports have served our nation well through local parks, high schools, college, and actually the pros.  Sports helped end racial segregation.  No one can deny that sports at every level have helped bridge the racial divide.

            Just as important is the influence that coaches have had on teens and college young adults.  I can only hope that coaches are still as powerfully and positively influential now as they were for the 45 years I was around them. (That’s from high school days when I was being coached through the 37 years I was a proud colleague of coaches.)

 What lad or lass who loves their sport doesn’t understand the emotional roller coaster their coaches so often ride?  Gruff one moment, smiles the next.  A stern rebuke; a word of sincere commendation.  I’m persuaded that good coaches who move so effectively back and forth between correction and encouragement are models of good parenting.

            In our high schools, coaches are revered.  Typically, they are strong classroom teachers.  They know how to illustrate and demonstrate, not just tell.  Usually, they are funny, a trait needed more than ever, given the amount of brokenness that walks into the school building every morning.

            Good male coaches teach guys that men can and often should be tender.  Good female coaches teach girls that women can and often should be tough.  I’ve never worked with a male coach who didn’t exemplify masculinity or a female coach who didn’t exemplify femininity.  Oops!   Masculinity and femininity are out of step with the notions and feelings of the effete New Sexuality proponents (trans, inter, binary, etc.).  But notions and feelings aren’t reality.  School sports have a way of teaching reality while fostering discipline, endurance, and that ugly word, competition.

            In their infancy, sports were heralded for the teaching of character and promotion of sportsmanship.  By mid-twentieth century much of this aura was displaced by self-glory and the intrusion of the market.  The ungrateful athletes of the NFL indicate that sports are no longer the last refuge of patriotism.

            Still, these excesses and evils do not alter the inherent value of sports.  School isn’t out yet, but I guarantee you that every coach you know is thinking about next year.  Coaches work hard.

            Nobody can make me not love Kirby Smart or his manly predecessor, but the powers that be who set their salaries and turn our universities into farm teams are furthering the degradation of sports instead of promoting sports.

Roger Hines

5/9/18.  

           

The People are Speaking

                            The People are Speaking

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/6/18 

In late spring of 1952 my mother sent me to the cotton field to fetch my older brother Durwood.  “Tell him Paul and his wife are at the train station in Jackson and he needs to go get them,” she ordered.

I was 8 years old.  The previous fall I had been required to pick cotton, but chopping cotton (thinning and weeding it with a hoe) was a skill I was just too young and small to master.  Chopping was left to 5 older sisters who were still living at home and to Durwood.

For some months we had nervously anticipated the arrival of Paul and his war bride.  After fighting Hitler and Mussolini, Paul had come home, only to later return to Europe to help clean up the ruins of war.  In Trieste, Italy he met and married Antonia Maria Krevitan.

What would she look like? How in the world would we communicate with her? What if the Army sent Paul somewhere she couldn’t go and she had to stay with us?

When Durwood arrived home with the newlyweds, we learned we were to call her Pupi, the Italian word for doll.  The youngest girl in the Krevitan family, she was their beloved doll.  We quickly learned why.  Soon Paul did have to leave without her and our Italian doll nobly dealt with and overcame Southern heat, Southern grease, and Southern English. (“Why ‘crank up’ car?” she asked. “Car no go up.”)

Pupi had been an office manager of a large company in Trieste.  She was well-versed in Italy’s history.  Her family deplored Mussolini. (“He no like small countries.  He want big empire.”)

Pupi became our teacher and inspiration.  We already had a radio, 4 newspapers, and 3 magazines.  Now we had a live voice from Europe.

Recent political events in Italy have hurled my mind to Pupi who died 12 years ago at age 90.  Her words “(Mussolini) no like small countries…” came to mind last October when two referendums were held in northern Italy.  The wealthy provinces of Lombardy and Veneto desired more autonomy from Rome.  95% of Lombardy’s voters voted in favor of “economic devolution.”  In Veneto, 98% voted yes as well.

While it’s premature to speak of the dis-unification of Italy, it’s unwise to disregard the clamor around the world for localism, separatism, and even secession.  In Spain, also last October, the region of Catalonia voted for secession.  Catalonia hasn’t yet declared independence.  One snag is that secession is illegal under Spain’s constitution.  In Italy, the nation’s 1948 constitution allows “negotiation with the central government on regional autonomy.”

And what do political developments in my sister-in-law’s homeland have to do with the United States?  For starters, nations today are such close neighbors that what happens in one seems to affect all.  Nationalism, a word often used as a put-down by globalists and corporations that benefit from globalism, is in the air.  Populism, another suspect word and movement, is spreading.

As in Europe, so in America.  Millions of voters are indicating how un-represented they feel.  The editor of “The European Conservative,” A.M. Fantini, recently wrote that free people around the world are getting smart about big, unresponsive government and are opting for localism and “little democracies.”

Eighteen months ago American voters elected a total outsider as President.  In other countries (France is one example) outsiders, who were dubbed populists because they were not the establishment, lost elections but secured large numbers of votes.  What is showing is a desire for regional autonomy and a resurrection of national pride.

Globalism and multiculturalism have been crammed down our throats.  Does it make sense to say that the less we have in common, the stronger we are?  Have multi-lingual nations thrived anywhere without constant dissension?  Can we really have a nation without borders?

If Pupi were still alive, she would speak to all of this.  I believe she would say what I heard her say more than once: “A-med-i-ca no need to be like Italy.  Politics no be about people.  It be about the Mussolini’s and the big companies.”

Fantini writes, “Regardless of Italy’s future, we are witnessing today the slow re-assertion of the small and the local over the large and the global.”  In other words, America isn’t the only nation with a swamp problem.  Around the world voters are snarly.  Around the world more and more non-politicians with no political experience are running for office.

Today populists, nationalists, and separatists are called radicals and extremists.  So were they in 1776.

Roger Hines

5/2/18