Kids

How long are your children still kids?

My "kids" are out on their own and have kids of their own.  Recently I reconnected with a couple of my cousins on Facebook.  One said the last time she saw us was at our wedding reception which was many years ago.  I remember her as a pretty little girl, but now she is a pretty woman.

It seems like my "kids" are still the same size as they always were.  But I remember the fear and awe when they were born.  We somehow raised (mainly my LW) them and they are great parents.

It is awesome thinking that maybe we did something right!

Marriage

Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns — as opposed to changes in individual earnings — may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality. Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes.
“It is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and marrying helps them stay privileged,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University.
About 41 percent of births in the United States occur outside marriage, up sharply from 17 percent three decades ago. But equally sharp are the educational divides, according to an analysis by Child Trends, a Washington research group. Less than 10 percent of the births to college-educated women occur outside marriage, while for women with high school degrees or less the figure is nearly 60 percent.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-divided-by-i-do.html?_r=2)

What’s most troubling about these figures is that marriage is good for children.

“Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems,” write Mr. DeParle and Ms. Tavernise. Most births outside of a marriage are to couples who are living together, but marriages last longer than alternative arrangements. Tax-saving economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers may be the exception, but statistically, co-habitation arrangements in the United States are more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages.  (

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/for-younger-mothers-out-of-wedlock-births-are-the-new-normal/)

But that’s a mantra, and a stigma, that’s unfair to the reality of many families. Parents who choose single parenthood (mostly women, but far from all) at an established stage of their lives face different challenges than those who parent as a couple, but theirs is a different story than that of the single parent in less-secure circumstances.

In other words, the problem isn’t Murphy Brown (the television character criticized by Dan Quayle for choosing single motherhood) but the arguable Murphy Brown effect: What works for Michelle Williams, Minnie Driver and Sandra Bullock is a whole lot harder for Jessica Schairer, the single mother of three children featured in “Two Classes, Separated by ‘I Do’.” Jason DeParle’s profile of two Michigan mothers lays out stark differences in family experiences for the children of two very similar women, one married, the other raising her children alone after a failed relationship that never led to marriage,

differences come not just from the absence of a second parent. They also come from the economics of a family of four living on a single income that’s not large enough to replicate the income of most two-parent families. From there, the inequalities branch out into those very different childhoods: fewer activities, less help with homework, fewer vacations, less time to read and a far smaller margin for error.

It’s hard to separate the economic impact from the impact of the absence of that second parent, but regardless of causation, results appear to be far-reaching: lower scores on standardized tests, poorer grades and an increased likelihood of dropping out of high school or failing to attend college.(For a deeper view of the numbers, read Mr. DeParle’s Economix blog post “Economic Inequality and the Changing Family.”)(

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/is-it-i-do-or-i-plan-that-divides-us/)

Abstinence is a major part of the solution here. Despite contraception use by the vast majority of Americans, as well as 1.2 million abortions annually, 41% of births are outside of marriage, and 53% of births to women under 30 are out of wedlock. While both contraception and abortion are immoral, they are usually symptoms of the overall problem of a lack of abstinence until marriage. (

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/17/marriage-the-growing-class-divide-in-america/)

I am glad that my LW and I waited to have our children after marriage.  It was not really an option to do otherwise.  Fortunately my kids also waited.
Kids have a hard enough life without having extra burdens placed on them of a single parent. 

What Parents want for their kids

I was thinking about the above subject during my morning walk with Frisbit.

My list includes : better life than us, good health, good spouses, intelligence, a religious background, and happiness. I'm pretty sure that our kids have most of the above.

Both of them are more intelligent then me (I'm not too dumb either).  Both have excellent spouses who great parents in their own right.  They both belong and contribute to their churches.  They both seem to be happy (son in making beer & his kids, daughter with her kids & activities).  They both are fairly healthy.

I wish I could take more credit for how they turned out, but my wife is more responsible then I am.

I decided to use the internet and search for "what parents want for their children" and found some interesting (for some reason I type intersting when I want interesting, interesting huh?)  things.

What Kindergarten Teachers Wish Parents Knew : 

1. Your job isn’t over when you drop your little one off at school; it has only just begun.
2. This is not your grandfather’s kindergarten.
3. The more self-control your child has, the more successful he will be in school.
4. Make yourself known. Come in. Look around.
5. Your child needs lots of opportunities for play outside of school.
6. Reading to your child once a day is not enough.
7. Writing exploration at home is critical
8. Homework is an opportunity for talking, sharing, and listening
9. Television and video games use up valuable playtime.
10. First-hand experiences are another teacher for your child.


Here is a list of the top ten things students around the world said they remembered and loved most about their mothers.
Come into my bedroom at night, tuck me in and sing me a song. Also tell me stories about when you were little.
Give me hugs and kisses and sit and talk with me privately.
Spend quality time just with me, not with my brothers and sisters around.
Give me nutritious food so I can grow up healthy.
At dinner talk about what we could do together on the weekend.
At night talk to me about about anything; love, school, family etc.
Let me play outside a lot.
Cuddle under a blanket and watch our favorite TV show together.
Discipline me. It makes me feel like you care.
 Leave special messages in my desk or lunch bag.

Kids Today

Kids!
I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!
Kids!
Who can understand anything they say?
Kids!
They a disobedient, disrespectful oafs!
Noisy, crazy, dirty, lazy, loafers!
While we're on the subject:
Kids!
You can talk and talk till your face is blue!
Kids!
But they still just do what they want to do!
Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?
Kids!
I've tried to raise him the best I could
Kids! Kids!
Laughing, singing, dancing, grinning, morons!
And while we're on the subject!
Kids! They are just impossible to control!
Kids! With their awful clothes and their rock an' roll!
Why can't they dance like we did
What's wrong with Sammy Caine?
What's the matter with kids today!   ("Kids" from Bye Bye Birdie)

I was thinking about kids now and then (back in the dark ages when we were kids).  When I was young, we used to bicycle to the Detroit Zoo (it was then free to enter, we kids didn't have any money) which is on a very busy highway.  Now a days the kids are not allowed to go anywhere without being driven.  I saw the kid across the street come back from a soccer game in the family van; my poor kids had to bicycle to soccer games which were as close as the neighbor's game was.

We did not have any money and today if you look at the High School parking lot you will see cars, pickups, or vans that are much nicer than our Minivan.  It seems that every kid has a Cell Phone, in the olden days we used Carrier Pigeons (just kidding we had nothing to call home or our buddies).

Some advantages we had, we could get jobs (there is 30-40% unemployment in the 20-30 range thanks to P.O.).  Our teachers seemed to care more about teaching us then keeping Politically Correct speech in the classroom.  We were able to fail (believe or not we actually kept score in sports).  We were able to play baseball or football or etc. without coaches or team uniforms.

(Caveat : my grandkids appear to be raised in the correct (in my opinion) manner).

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told:  "I am with you kid.  Let's go."  ~Maya Angelou


We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.  ~Stacia Tauscher


You can learn many things from children.  How much patience you have, for instance.  ~Franklin P. Jones


A characteristic of the normal child is he doesn't act that way very often


Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.  ~William Stafford


Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.  ~Fran Lebowitz



CHILDHOOD, n.  The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age (DD)

Visit the Kids

I have just come back from a visit with our adult kids and all 5 grandsons.  The grandkids range in age from 14 months to 8 years.

It was my best Christmas gift.  They tend to wear us out & I now realize that child rearing is best done in your 20's & 30's,  but their energy level is amazing.  The older 3 with the two dads went sledding & then still had the energy to run around my daughter's house all evening.

The younger ones were cute & huggable, all were fun to play with.

My kids are very good parents; it is good that they had my wife's example.  I think I worked too much when they were growing up (in the Navy for most of them); I'm afraid I missed an awful lot.

CHILDHOOD (n) The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age (Devil's Dictionary)