Why Didn't I Ask?

Last week’s blog ‘When You Were Young and I Was Poor’ reminisced about missing out on so much of my own backstory as I was growing up. My mother, indoctrinated by her staunch German Catholic upbringing, would not allow herself to talk about the past. That reluctance to share with my sister and I her own history has left Marlene and I with a void that’s never been filled. Sharon and I didn’t want to make the same mistake with our grandchildren.

Our shared history is, in a very real sense, their history dating back through the years. Through my blogs and Sharon, through her dialogue, we have made the occasional effort to share our past lives with our grandkids. We felt it was important for them to know about those life events that brought us to where we are today.

Like most grandchildren, ours weren’t that interested at first. But gradually, they’ve come to realize that our world growing up was vastly different from their world of today. The contrast surprised and sometimes perplexed them.

So, this Christmas when both families were together, Sharon and I made a concerted effort to talk about our past and welcome questions from the grandkids. The grandchildren, ages thirteen through eighteen, through their probing questions highlighted the stark contrasts between respective young lives growing up.

Sharon shared photos of her birth place in Elgin, Nebraska. It was a two-bedroom farm house on land her father rented. They were two miles out of town and Saturdays were ‘go to town’ and resupply day.

In contrast, I talked about the first place I remember which was a six-plex apartment building near downtown St. Paul. After that, we moved to another neighborhood farther away.

Photo Credit: Jerry Hoffman

Sharon talked about moving to Minnesota when she was eight to the 100-year-old farm house in Wabasha, Minnesota. I showed a photo of the house my mother built by herself in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Sharon talked about her one room school house out in the country before she went to town for high school. I took a city bus to my grade school in downtown St. Paul and walked to high school.

The differences of Sharon growing up in the country verses me in the city were clear enough. It was the questions the kiddos asked that surprised me the most.

They had never heard of a ‘paper route’ or side gigs like ‘cleaning the bulk tank’ on the farm or working at the ‘neighborhood grocery store.’ They asked me about the draft and my time in the Army. They had no concept of the Selective Service or what an ‘internet café’ was. They couldn’t understand why I chose to use hitch-hiking as my primary source of transportation while living in Denmark.

They knew little of Vietnam and less of student protests. Unfortunately, a couple of other wars came after that one. Their world began with cell phones, the internet, family vacations, comfortable homes, and access to good education. Theirs was a world radically different from the one Sharon and I grew up in.

Yet, it was very important that our grandchildren understood their heritage and background and that of their parents and grandparents. If for no other reason than to better understand their own advantages and the expectations placed on them because of those advantages.

I can’t make up for the lack of information I had growing up on my own heritage. My kids and grandkids won’t suffer the same fate.

Eating Green Grass

Google tells us there is simple jealousy and complex jealousy. If you probe those web pages a little further you’ll come up with a plethora of attributes, angles, theories, plausible explanations and some pretty far-out scenarios to explain adult jealousy. For example, some would argue that simple jealousy expresses value and complex jealousy drives you crazy. Another theory is that simple jealousy regulates distance while complex jealousy expands distance. These ivory tower dissertations do little in offering plausible explanations for us layman.

There is a clearer definition and I think the actress Carrie Fisher (Star Wars) got it right the first time. She’s been quoted as saying: “Envy is when you take poison and wait for the other guy to die.”

That’s it in a nut shell. Jealousy is that bile-taste in your mouth when you hear of another person’s good fortune. It’s the knot in your stomach at the sight of someone else’s newest possession. It’s perhaps hoping their good fortune might end sooner than later…and you’ll be around to see it.

I was reminded of these strange phenomena the other day when I was forced to watch one of those inane reality shows in front of my stationary bicycle at the gym. In this case it was one of those ‘The Real Housewives of…’ But it could have been any one of a dozen reality shows meant to garner eyeballs while leaving those respective minds void of any plausible rational thoughts. Some pretend news web sites do the same thing. Buzzfeed and The Daily Mail come to mind.

Jealousy is something we usually attribute to older children and teenagers. There’s an assumption that with maturity comes a realization that life isn’t fair and ‘some people have it made’ while others don’t. That’s the way we’d like to believe life works…but that can be far from the truth. Adults can be as jealous and envious of others just like kids. Sometimes it’s even worse because they can’t or won’t admit it.

We’ve all probably experienced someone in our extended family or circle of acquaintances that seems to be living the good life…without having earned it. They don’t seem to be working very hard or just seem to be lucky all the time. They might be business owners who have inherited the family business and have never worked overtime or evenings or weekends. It might be others who seem to be floating along quite blissfully without a care in the world.

Truth is, it’s been that way all of our lives. We all knew who ‘they’ were back in high school, in college and even in the workplace. We couldn’t help but notice their trappings of success and seemingly easy accumulation of material things. As ‘real life’ teaches us, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the tracks even if our eyes seem to tell us differently.

The media feeds us a steady diet of this Pablum all meant to make us want to be someone else. I have a friend who has an interesting take on the public’s continuing obsession with Hollywood gossip, ‘Entertainment tonight’ type programs and pretend celebrity news channels. His theory is that most people lead very dull lives and as such they love to live vicariously through the lives of their movie/television idols. He claims ‘we want what we can’t or don’t have.’ Does anyone remember ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?’

Once again envy raises its ugly head but under the guise of admiration or interest. In reality, nice people don’t always win, hard work doesn’t guarantee success and in general life isn’t always fair.

My wife and I have reminded our kids since grade school that ‘life isn’t fair’ and that things don’t always turn out in their favor. I would then add (gently): “Welcome to the real world…now learn to deal with it.”  Now they’re telling their own kids the very same thing.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work hard all your life for those things of importance to you. It just means there is no guarantee you’ll ever get there. But at least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you tried and that in itself should be more than enough gratification.

Hard work and effort is still a moniker worthy of pursuit. To have tried and failed is still better than to never have tried in the first place.

For truly the journey itself is the destination.

I'm Rich, You're Not.

There’s a great scene in the old Bill Cosby Television show where Theodore Huxtable, Dr. Huxtable’s son, is spouting off about being wealthy. Ever the casual but very wise Dr. Huxtable, (Bill Cosby) casually informs Theodore that while he and his wife Clare are wealthy, Theodore is not.

Being born into a family of wealth doesn’t make a person rich; just privileged and some would argue very lucky. But of course, a lot of young people don’t see it that way. For some of those folks, the sense of entitlement hangs heavy over their lives.

It’s almost as if they want a guarantee that if they work hard and sacrifice then everything will turn out OK. The trouble with that supposition is that in reality life doesn’t always work out that way. There are only two guarantees in life: death and taxes. Both can be avoided for a while but will always get you in the end.

While running the risk of sounding like some old curmudgeon who laments the good old times when men went off to work and the little woman stayed home to cook and clean and have babies, I have witnessed the naïve assumption among many young people that what is their parents have somehow also belongs to them.

One of my standard refrains for my own two kids as they were growing up was to remind them that ‘life isn’t fair’ and that was a fact of life. If you want to succeed in life, you ought to do it on your own.

That theme of driving ambition is a major component to the storyline in my book “Love in the A Shau.”  (picture shown to the right -->)

One of the main differences between my two protagonists in “A Shau” is their cultural backgrounds and status in society. Colleen is the daughter of a wealthy physician and her mother comes from old ‘east coast’ money. She has been raised to understand and appreciate her elevated position in society. She doesn’t take it for grant but she won’t apologize for it either.

Daniel, on the other hand, is the product of a broken marriage and a single mother who cautions him to remember ‘his place in society’ and not try to become someone or something he isn’t.

Against this realistic backdrop of societal differences, Colleen stated it best to her parents:

“Daniel was born hungry,” She tells them, “I had to learn to be hungry.”

More often than not, wealth once created by the first generation has disappeared by the third generation. In America, it’s called ‘shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.’  In Ireland, they call it ‘clog to clog.’ In China, it’s called ‘rice paddy to rice paddy.’  In Italy, it’s called ‘barn stall to barn stall.’ Universally, the transfer of wealth without responsibility enhances a sense of entitlement which more often than not leads to financial disaster.

Studies have proven that statistically sixty percent of families waste away their wealth by the end of the second generation. By the end of the third generation, ninety percent of families have little or nothing left of money received from grandparents. Ultimately, ninety-five percent of all trad-itional inheritance plans fail.

So how do you teach ambition to your children while at the same time offering them any advantage you can to help them succeed in real-world situations?

Of course, the internet is awash with suggestions, ideas, plans and psychological strategies to make sure your kids aren’t lazy and shiftless. One of the more realistic papers is entitled: “How to Raise Ambitious and Caring Children.” By Sandra Jarboe.  I like a lot of what it has to say. Encapsulated, some of her best ideas are:

1.      Live by example.

Most kids have better radar than NASA and the NSA combined. They watch everything you say and do. Fudge just a little and it will come around to bite you in the butt.

2.      Listen to your kids.

What I have heard from educators for centuries is that parents don’t listen

carefully to their kids. If you listen, kids will tell you almost anything and

everything going on in their lives.

3.      Watch what they pay attention to the most

By observing their interests you can figure out where their talents and satisfaction comes from.

4.      Show interest by investing time

It is the most valuable asset you have to help a child succeed.

5.      Never tell your child they can’t do something

Repeat: NEVER tell your kid that they can’t!

6.      Watch their company

At a young age, YOU are responsible for whom they hang out with. Even in middle school and high school, my wife and I were cognizant of who our kids friends were and what groups they belonged to. And I say that without apology.

7.      Train your children the right way and allow them to make mistakes

Don’t rule with an iron fist. Know when to correct and when to listen.

In my own life, I guess you show them tough-love with an emphasis on love. You encourage them to try things and risk failure when they do. You set standards relative to their position in life and you hold them to those expectations. You encourage empathy on their part and a recognition of the advantages they’ve been given. You stop being their friend and become their parent first and pal second. You do what you need to do even if it’s uncomfortable at the time. You somehow help them understand their advantages in life and use them for self-improvement and to help others.

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way: “It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you’ve got it, it requires ten times as much to keep it.” Clearly around the world, the odds are against that happening.

Or maybe Andrew Carnegie, the 19^th-century steel magnate said it best: “The parent who leaves his son (I would change it to children) enormous wealth generally deadens the talents and energies of the son, and tempts him to lead a less worthy life.”

Simply stated, “You gotta work for it even if you got it in the first place.”

If there is anything I can do for my kids and my grandchildren it’s to keep them ‘hungry’ for the rest of their lives. I hope I succeed in doing just that.