Mom's Legacy is Secure

This blog is supposed to be about my kids. I’m going to break protocol.

It is Mother’s Day, and I want to talk about my mom.

In a way, this is still about my kids. Everything that I am can, in some way, be traced back to my mom. Every lesson I’ve learned either came from her, or was absorbed from someone else because she taught me to keep an open mind and value education. The way I conduct myself, the way I treat people, the expectations I have of others – mom, mom and mom.

I’ll pass all that down to Sydney and Tyson. They are her legacy as much as they are mine.

Diagnosed with colon and liver cancer a few months ago, my mom has been thinking about her legacy. I know this because she has asked me if I want to take ownership of some of her prized possessions. She wants things to carry on.

I will. If they mean a lot to her, they mean a lot to me. Because she means a lot to me.
 

But the most important things she will ever give me have come from the example she has been and the lessons she has taught.

Pregnant at 16, she was a divorced at 17, stuck raising me on her own. In the next six years, she’d marry again and have two more children. At the age of 27, she was twice divorced and, essentially, a single mother of three.

To that point a waitress, she came upon her single-mother status with a new job, working at a state mental institution, making a whopping $2.42 an hour. That is less than $100 a week. She’d often come home with bruises and bite marks from the patients, so she earned that pittance the hard way.

Over the next eight years, we’d live in four different places. We stayed with my grandmother, then shared apartments with a live-in babysitter or a family friend to help make the rent. The threat of eviction or the electricity being turned off constantly hung in the air. I went my whole high school career calling my girlfriend from the corner pay phone because we couldn’t afford a phone in the house.

We ate government cheese and sometimes paid for food with colorful play money called food stamps. Mom would make a big pot of potato soup or ham and beans soup and we’d eat it for a week. I remember a sixth grade class project where we chronicled what we ate for breakfast every day and I had five straight days of cake and Kool-Aid. It was my brother’s birthday week and mom had bought a big sheet cake -- every kid deserves a nice birthday -- and, well, Kool-Aid at 15 cents a pack was a lot cheaper than milk.

We went without, but mom always came through when we needed her. In sixth grade, I wanted to go to Washington D.C. with the school's safety patrol. The cost was $100. That was more than a week’s pay. I have no idea how she came up with the money, but somehow I went on that trip.

My bet is she swallowed her pride and borrowed it from a friend or a relative. In those days, my mom had three children to raise and she couldn’t afford the expense of pride. I’m known around the office and in my life for often saying the phrase “Don’t trust anyone but your mother.” I guess I say that because I’ve had one who has never let me down.

I look at how Brooke and I struggle sometimes making far more money than mom ever did. I'm amazed at how she ever pulled it off. I know we didn't have what most parents would like to give their kids, and I am sure that broke mom's heart. But when I look back at those times, I realize that we had what is really the only thing that matters: endless love.

After she got pregnant with me, my mom got her high school diploma by taking classes through the mail. She could have dropped out and been done with it, but education was important to her, even then. If you ever play Scrabble with her, or watch her do a crossword puzzle, you know not to underestimate her. She can outshine many a college graduate when it comes to vocabulary.

When I told her during my senior year of high school that I was thinking about not going to college, she went Alec Baldwin on me for being a rude, thoughtless child. We might not have had the money, she might not have known how to fill out the paperwork, I might not have made a single college visit in my whole life, but, she’d be damned if a kid with my potential was going to skip out on college.

So, I borrowed money, took advantage of grants, won scholarships and – with mom as an example -- worked up to three jobs at a time to make it through. 

 

And that decision made all the difference in the world for me. It set in motion a tremendous journalism career and follow-up public relations career. I’ve sat and talked with presidents at the White House, spent time with numerous politicians, actors and rock-and roll legends, and traveled in 38 states, as well as Mexico, Canada, France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands.

None of that is achieved without my mother. If it weren't for her, I'd still be living in Massillon, Ohio wondering if my next pay check would cover my rent payment.

If it is the wish of every parent that their child do better than they did, my mom’s wish has come true.

And that, my friends, is mom’s legacy. I know the statistics on single mothers and teen mothers, especially those who live in poverty. Their offspring have a much greater chance at failure. If my mom did nothing else during her time on earth, she was the world’s greatest mother. She’s three for three when it came to raising children who graduated high school, stayed out of the criminal justice system, avoided abusing drugs and alcohol and somehow managed to become productive members of society.

Just as important, they’re all now raising children of their own and imparting mom’s wisdom at every turn. My brother, a single father who runs his own business, does such a wonderful job I am waiting for some parenting magazine to name him Father of the Year. My sister, who has struggled with single motherhood in the same way as my mother, has handled it with the same never-say-die attitude.

And now I have Sydney and Tyson, her youngest grandchildren. I, too, will raise them with the same lessons mom passed on, either verbally or by example: “Show up for work every day, so they know they can depend on you.” “The only way you get something in life is if you earn it.” “Don’t do anything that will embarrass your family.” “Once you start something, finish it.” “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.” “Education is the way to a better life.” “Help those who are less fortunate, because someday you could be in their shoes.”

She may not have uttered them all, but she’s sure lived each one. She taught us right from wrong and held us accountable for our actions. I know people who grew up with far more than I did but learned far less.
 

I don’t know if we will have my mom for another two months, two years or twenty years. I do know, however, that her legacy is secure.

I need look no further than the two children scurrying at my feet.

Hide the Playboys, it's Time to Find a Babysitter

Let’s talk babysitting.

I have no idea how to pick one, how much to pay one or, most importantly, how to trust one.

I’ve recently been thinking about babysitting and that has me pondering how this world has changed. Babysitting, like everything else, has evolved over the past generation.  

I’m not saying the art of watching children has changed. If you were skilled in that in 1970, you are skilled in that now. Actually, if you were skilled in that in 1970, you might be dead now. Or at least using a walker to get around, and that would make it tough to be a good babysitter.

What I am talking about is what babysitting says about us as a society. Gone are the days of calling up grandma or the trusted neighbor down the street. We are much more mobile now and that makes it much more difficult to find a good babysitter.

I also want to clarify that I believe babysitting and child care to be two different things. Child care is something one does as a profession. I formerly sat on the board of 4C, the local child care education and referral agency, and am fairly knowledgeable about child care and brain development from birth to 3. You want a child care professional spending 10 hours a day, five days a week with your child, not a babysitter.

Child care professionals take this s--t seriously. This is a permanent job for them, not a temporary gig. It involves teaching and developing children, not just making sure they don’t set the house on fire.

It is when my child care provider has an emergency and needs the day off that I must turn to a babysitter.

In fact, that’s really what got me thinking about this. Our provider needed a day off to put her dog to sleep. Sidebar: This situation just about brings me to tears, and it is not even my dog.  I am a dog owner and lover. I barely knew this dog, but the plight of anyone having to put their dog down sends me spiraling. I know it is a choice I will have to make one day with my 9-year-old German Shepherd, Vegas, or my 8-year-old Weimaraner, Murphy, and I am sure I will be a blubbering mess when it happens.

So, my child care provider needed a day off. But that meant that either Brooke or I had to take off work. In fact, any time our provider has a day off, one of us is cashing in a vacation day.

That is the state of our society today. Thirty years ago, generations of families lived within the same town, if not on the same block. If you needed someone to temporarily watch your child, you had a half dozen people to choose from. A couple of grandmas, aunts, uncles, even a trusted neighbor.

But, over the past generation, society has become much more mobile. I ended up in Cincinnati because of a job and stayed because I liked the town. Brooke went to school here and stayed. Neither of us has family in this area. Mine is four hours away, hers is six.

When we need a babysitter, we are s—it out of luck. Whether it be an emergency day off from our child care provider, a wild Friday night on the town or even something as simple as having to work late – we don’t really have anyone to turn to.

I’m sure there are people who would do it for us. We have friends. But they work during the day, too. We know some people with children in their teens. But they go to school and have after-school activities.

I envy people whose families live in Cincinnati. They simply dial a number and say, “Mom, I have to work late tonight. Can you get Johnny from school today?” My wife and I have to play the game of “who has more important things going on at work?” Or even, “who will get in more trouble for taking off?”

Another sidebar: Work is important and all, but you know when a babysitter would really come in handy? Saturday and Sunday mornings. It would change my life. Not only could I catch up on all the sleep I miss during the week, but I could do a little guilt-free partying on Friday and Saturday nights because I would have someone to watch the Berenstein Bears with the little one in the morning.   

I’m not saying we couldn’t find a babysitter if we really put out the effort. But the truth is, I’m afraid to leave my child with someone. I work in the child protection field. I hear stories every day of terrible things happening to children. I don’t want Sydney falling down the basement steps because my babysitter was distracted by an intense texting conversation with her BFF over which country song best resembles her current love life. Nor do I want the husband of one of my wife’s friends, who might drink 13 beers to "wind down" at night, giving my daughter a hard shake because she is making too much noise.

In her 13 months, Sydney has been watched by my mom for a week while we went to a wedding in California, my mom for a night when we went to a local wedding, and by my wife’s friend for three hours while we cashed in an expiring Groupon for a Cajun dinner.  Other than grandma and Libby, and her child care provider, Amber, she has spent all of her time with either mom or dad.

I know this can’t last. Something will come up that we have to be at. Or want to be at. Like a Ryan Gosling movie. Or a Justin Bieber concert. I need to break down and find a babysitter. I’m going to have to trust someone.

I guess I’ll start with the kids of friends. But how do you know if someone is trustworthy? Every parent is going to say their kid can babysit. And there are a lot of kids who can do everything right in every other walk of life, but they might get stressed by a crying baby and give them a good shake to settle them down.

I guess I could interview them and background check them like I did my child care provider, but what 16-year-old can hold up to that kind of scrutiny? Besides, aren’t all kids a bit irresponsible? When I was that age, I would have considered myself more responsible than most, but I remember visiting my girlfriend while she was babysitting and attempting to get my groove on while the children slept in the nearby bedroom.

Lest you think I was a complete knucklehead, please be aware that I cared for my younger brother and sister after school when I was about 13. I cooked the hot dogs or mac and cheese or Hamburger Helper when mom worked late. The house did not burn down. No one got arrested. My sister did get hit by a car once, but I was right there loading her into the ambulance when it came. 

But that was a simpler time. When I was a kid, my mom could have left me with any of our neighbors and I would have been fine. But nowadays, you never know if your neighbor is a psychopath and you’ll come home to find your child cooking in the microwave.

A friend of mine is a teacher. He gets all his sitters from his pool of students. That’s bold. I’d be afraid they’d rummage through my personal affects and I would show up at school on Monday to rumors that I have a prized Playboy collection dating back to 1988.

Not that I do. (Wink, wink.)

If I do finally find a babysitter, how much do I pay them? I was talking to a guy the other day who said he pays $15 an hour. So if he and the wife go out for Happy Hour to closing time, or spend a Saturday night at a wedding, he’s spending $100 on child care, as well as what he spent taking the wife out or buying the wedding present.

That’s a little out of my public-employee pay range. Plus, that guy has three kids. I have one. I’m thinking maybe $8 an hour? Here’s where writing a blog comes in handy -- you tell me what the going rate is these days.

There is so much that goes into this babysitting decision. Who to pick, how much to pay, where to hide the Playboy collection….I long for a simpler time when my street was filled with relatives and trusted neighbors who longed for nothing more than to earn $2.50 an hour watching babies.

Massillon, Ohio, circa 1978, I’m coming home. Keep the light on for me.