Don’t be Rude...

A couple of weeks ago Kit was coming home every day with black marks for misbehaving in school. He has a hard time paying attention, acts out and rude to his teacher. He had been doing better but it went downhill and he just couldn’t settle down. Finally, I asked him if he even knew what disrespectful even meant when it came to his teachers. I figured if he can’t define it, he may not know he’s doing it. So we spent the homework hour one night going over disrespect and being rude and defining it but it didn’t add up for him.

I said, “If I told you it’s time to do your homework, how would you response to be rude and disrespectful?“
He wouldn’t say. I didn’t know if he didn’t know or couldn’t understand or was being obtuse because he didn’t want to. It was hard. I couldn’t get him to be rude. We went around it until Tio came up for supper.

I asked him the same question. “Kit seems to be having a problem understanding disrespect. If I said it’s time to do your homework, how would you response to be rude and disrespectful?”
“Bite me” he said without pause. Nice to know one of the boys is on top of his game.

Incidentally, Kit has been doing better since then.

Maybe Boys Can Be Angels Too.

Today was one of those days where everything went well. Kit opened the advent calendar to discover we were going to a hockey game in the afternoon. I slept in a bit because Tish fed the boys breakfast in their apartment and kept them down there until Katrina and I both got up. My sister played chess and cards with them, we had grilled cheese and then headed off for some Christmas shopping and college hockey. No one argued. No one fought. No one complained about being treated unfairly or anything. They’re all in bed now. The colorful tree is beautiful reflecting in the picture window. It’s raining cats and dogs and we’re quieting down for the night.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas....

When One Hand Doesn’t Know What The Other One Is Doing.

We’ve all searched endlessly for lost glasses and pencils we can’t find. Many of us discover the glasses are on our heads or the pencil in our pocket. I’ve hunted my desktop on tax prep day for my pencil only to realize through my mumbled cursing that the damn thing was between my teeth. Today, though, is a potential chart topper. I settled down on the sofa with my mug of coffee and some Licorice Allsorts (if you haven’t had them - scoot out to your store! Yummy). I was reading email on my laptop and reached for my coffee. It wasn’t there. I searched the table, the windowsill, the arm rest. Everything short of getting up.

“Tish! Did I leave my mug over there?”
Before she could answer, I laughed. “Never mind. It’s in my other hand.”
I could hear her admonishing voice all the way from the kitchen. “You see? This is why you need to take some time for yourself away from the kids. You’re going crazy.”

GOING crazy?

Does Humble Pie Come In Chocolate?

“I finally found my snowboarding socks,” Tio said last night while we were watching TV.
“Where? On your feet?” I replied with a tinge of sarcasm. After all, he doesn’t look very hard for anything.
“No,” he said, pointing ankleward. “They’re on your feet.”
Oops.   “Are these yours? Sorry. Shall I wash ‘em for you?”

Can We Talk? Do We Have To?

This afternoon I was making tea for the volunteers who work for our town library. I boiled up the water and hotted the pots and so forth in the kitchen while everyone ate cookies and shared stories on a cold afternoon. Several people came back for this and that and asked me if I was coming out to mingle. “No thanks,” I told them, “I think I’ve run out of small talk.”

That may present a problem as the kids grow and make friends and do sports and theater and find the crowd they socialize with because behind all of that lurks all the parents creating their own social network alongside their youngsters while driving them around, ensuring their safety, meeting at events, and getting them through school. I don’t think I can keep up with the who’s who of parents that spans 7 years and 3 kids and 6 grade levels. I’ve already been through a baseball and football season watching the same crowd gather and yak and cheer their boys on. It’ll be the same next year and evermore. I was pretty aloof which probably makes me seem callous or remote. It’s not that I can’t do all that, I’m just not in that frame of mind. Will it be better for the kids if I do?

Besides, I’m a bit tired of conventional wisdom dictating all this networking, support groups, chat rooms, listservs and social confab, like the only way to stay sane is to find people to commiserate and form a like minded bond with. They say it when you’re a parent, they say it for writers, say it for students, cops, survivors, librarians, and I’ll bet there’s someone out there saying mass murderers need support groups, too. Conventional wisdom is gospel truth - until it isn’t. If I had a support group for every endeavor I take on, I’d need group therapy to survive it.

Sometimes, I wonder if there’s isn’t just a bit too much talk about talk. Then again, I’m the one writing this blog so who am I to talk?

Better Watch What You Say, You Never Know Who’s Listening!

Everyone has favorite movies and movie lines that become part of family lexicon. You repeat them with each other like a family joke whenever it seems to fit in. One such movie for us is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. There are lots of funny scenes and dialog and we repeat them like any other expression in regular speech. In one scene, the school’s dean of students, Ed Rooney, puts his foot in his mouth by saying over the phone to a bereaving man that he should come on over and smooch his big old white butt. “Pucker Up, Buttercup!” he says. Don’t know why but that phrase has stuck with us.

Doc came home from kindergarten the other day and out of the blue said he’d been telling everyone on the bus to “Buckle up, Buttercup!”

Nice paraphrasing. No need to correct that.

Rolling Rover Over

Me 'n Bunnie 'n Zoe

A few days ago I wrote about the hectic life of living with four dogs. It came off sounding like all they are is trouble. While bounding high energy and noise is one side of it, here’s the up side.

Bunnie is my sweetie and a great cuddler (can you tell from the picture?). She was born here. At about a year old we became inseparable. She’s smart and thinks she’s better than the other dogs. She is way too protective of me. Her dad, Gulliver, has been with us since he was 8 weeks old. Unlike Bunnie, Gully is all dog. He loves to romp and play and has no subtlety. Both he and Bunnie are a joy to watch running. He uses his noodle to get food and get along. That’s it. He's great to everyone. Same thing with Maddie. At 2 she’s just getting over puppyhood. She goes to work with Tish, works for her at the training center, and stands on our kitchen table for a better look out the window. She’s all over everyone with affection.

Last and most amazing is Zoe, the one Tish calls “Miss P” the perfect girl. She’s a natural dominant dog which meant she always kept the other dogs in line like a kind but firm den mother. An amazing instinct and brain all wrapped up in one dog. For years Tish took her into schools and nursing homes as visiting companion and for dog bite safety classes. She learned agility and tricks and was so bright eyed that you could see her brains working while she figured out some really complex puzzles. I drew the line on teaching her to open the fridge. She’s 14 now. All her littermates are gone but she's still healthy, clear eyed and keeps up with the other dogs running around the yard. She’s developed some serious anxieties in old age (who hasn’t) which makes her pace and pant and fret.

Kit especially loves the dogs and they love him back. He plays with them and buries them with affection. Tio has always been wary of their noise and high energy but he’s warming up, too. Even Doc is learning how to tell them to sit, go away, and settle down.

Having this many dogs living in one house is always a challenge because of proximity but we’ve got a good group. As three-fifths of our household along with the humans that make up our madhouse, we jostle and fit and get along and bug each other to death all at the same time. You know, a family.

What else is new?

Sticks and Stones.

Kit went to his first dance tonight. Very different from the one Tio was at last month. A bigger space, not so crowded, and younger kids. I dropped them both off  to come back after I got Doc in bed Tish got out of work. I was there for most of it and, after two hours of loud music, stomping, running and laughter, we all drove home.

They got in the front door and Tio raised a high five saying, “Thanks for not being a total spaz tonight.”

Kit ignored the high five and backhanded compliment. Instead, he curled up on the sofa looking reflectively despondent. Even Gulliver didn’t jump up to sit in his lap, which is unusual because that dog loves the boy. I finished up a couple of things, asked a couple of perfunctory questions, got nods in return and then sat down with him. I wasn’t sure if I should prod or just sit quietly with him. We were silent for at least 20 minutes. An eternity in Kit time.

Finally, I leaned in and asked what happened and if I could help. He started to talk. It turned out for the few minutes I wasn’t there at the beginning of the dance a couple of kids started calling him names and telling his best friend that he shouldn’t hang around with him. It hurt deeply and Kit was in tears. A couple of teachers broke it up and set things straight.

Kit is very individual. He does things his own way. He likes to dress differently, play different things and think differently. Being unique makes him an easy target for the bullies and feebs at school. At his age, I was like him for very different reasons. I had a cleft lip that gave the bullies all the ammo they needed to beat on me. So I know what he’s going through and I know he doesn’t know why.

I wish Tio was more supportive but his own troubled relationship with Kit doesn’t help. He probably thought his cutting remark was a compliment. My brother’s had my back when I came home bruised or completely confused. There was no question that home was a safety zone for me. Kit doesn’t get that from his brothers.

I love the boy as if his heart was beating in my chest. I told him so and gave him hugs to feel better. That only helps some. He’s going to have to take some serious lumps as his school years go by. He’ll develop a thick skin but his heart and his already fragile ego will take some serious beatings.

We can’t protect our kids from everything there is out there and that’s got to be the biggest hurt there is for a parent.

She shoots...she SCORES!

We got our first snowfall this week. My mind went to skating and I recalled something from a couple of years ago. I may have mentioned that Tio is a real boy’s boy. Loves sports, loves gaming, loves to tussle and show off with his buds. I took him to his first hockey game at Dartmouth College. It was spur of the moment and got the tickets at the arena. It was women’s hockey. No problem for me, but I wasn’t sure if he’d like it simply because they were girls and he was 9.

We’d had a couple of talks about respect for women and girls before that when he, like generations of boys before him, put girls down as being inferior simply because of their gender. I hoped he’d be okay because it was a live sport. When the teams raced out for warm ups they were all bulked up in padding, black skates, gloves, and helmet with face guard, you couldn’t tell them from droids except for a lot of ponytails.

After watching them work the rink for a couple of minutes Tio said, “Hey, Grampy! I think these are women.”
I looked at the tickets like I was making sure, “Hmm, you’re right! This is women’s hockey,” was all I said.
We watched in silence for a few more minutes and then he said, “Man, they’re really good!”

That’s the last word we heard on that. The game went into 4 overtime periods and he screamed his head off for the local girls. The following season I had to duck to avoid a puck in the head that one of those women shot into the stands. Tio still has that puck. I think we should go again soon. We’ve seen some great games.

On The First Day of Christmas...

I was up into the wee hours this morning making this non-denominational advent calendar to start off the Christmas season for the boys. It’s a big foamcore board with some fun stuff to do behind 24 removable doors hidden in his beard and hat. I didn't plan Santa to look so much like an aging biker but after ridin’ that sleigh all these years, the old buff must be getting a bit rough around the edges.

Today’s treat? Pizza night!

The Pitter Pat of 16 Tiny Feet.

Dogs have been an integral part of my life since boyhood and especially since I met Tish. In fact we met because our puppies got entangled in front of my house one day. Actually, it goes back further. I rented that house because they allowed dogs. Doggy destiny if ever there was one. None of that cute little tale prepared me for the canine onslaught to come.

For the past 20 years we’ve had as many as six dogs at a time all living in the house. Right now we have four Australian Shepherds. I’ve had hot and cold relationship with them, the constant noise level on one end and loving to cuddle and watch them interact with each other at the other, the constant attention they need, the never quite sleeping attention they give. Tish adores them and because of them she’s become a professional canine behavior specialist.

But, man, what a learning curve. Constant noise, dog fights, dog bites, puke and dirty dog yards. A bed full of animals while we slept, a sofa crammed with fur, lapping tongues and noses when we hang out. Then there’s the floor covered with them constantly around our feet like a flock of sheep. Getting in synch with them wasn’t easy. There’s a rhythm to living with dogs to keep your own sanity and to keep them getting along in the house. Some of them never get along. I’ve torn up my share of fights and Tish has a constant fresh bite on one hand or the other from dogs at work. I remember once holding one high in the air while another hung on by her teeth, both of them suspended off the ground. It was like trying to pull taffy apart. That is, if taffy screamed and squirmed and bit and bled. We have a series of gates around the house to separate them when they don’t get along or one is in heat. Walking through our house is like prep for a hurdle race. Always lifting a leg over a barrier and opening others. If they had a hurdle event where you jump them while carrying two hot dinners and a beer, I’d win the Olympics.

So here we are all these years later and I’ve finally found my place with the dogs. Often, I’ve had one special dog that was mine alone and right now that dog is Bunnie. She’s a sweetheart of a pup but overprotective of me. That’s my fault and our resident canine expert tells me I need to do something about it. I agree totally but with all the other things going on in this house, who has time to train a dog, too?

Enter the grandsons and talk about a whirl of activity all the time. Kit likes the dogs the most, Tio the least. Doc sees them as background noise. Background, my left eye! They bark when a car goes by, they bark and jump when someone comes home, they bark at the wind blowing and they bark at each other. I don’t mean a pleasant little woof, either. I mean a cacophony of slathering, roof raising ruckus that dulls the senses and makes hearing anything else in life someone else’s enjoyment. “Be quiet!” “Shut UP!” “Leave it!” “Go lie down.” all join in as part of the chant to bring the total decibel level up to four dogs yapping and a group of humans yapping back.

I actually do love the whacked out beasts. Some days more than others but they’re definitely an important part of the insanity in our lives. Someday’s I do wonder what a quiet retiring life might be like. Tish has dreams of building a yurt on an undisclosed location that she and I can get away to.

I bet she’d want to bring the dogs.

Great Expectations

I think things are getting better for Buddy. He’s had a rough ride the past few years for a whole host of reasons and moving in here with the boys wasn’t easy on him, either. I’ve mentioned in a couple of posts how he's had trouble coping with schedules, keeping up with the kids, chores, and being a overwhelmed with parenthood. When they first moved in Tish and I took charge of the kids because their relationship with Buddy was out of control. They refused to do anything he said without a fight and his day’s off with them were a holy war, on steroids. Doc whined and groveled, Kit kicked and screamed, and Tio swore a blue streak of obstinacy. Cut to eleven months later and the kids have settled down considerably. They know the routine, know what is expected each day and as a result treat each other better and treat him better as well. He gets home in time to put Doc to bed as often as he can and Kit isn’t always picking a fight with him.

I think the kids started easing up before he came around to adapting himself. It’s been as tough on him as it was on them except that as an adult, he’s expected to cope and ‘make it work’ all on his own, which is never easy when you’re up to your nose in water and have only ever expected things to get worse all your life. But with everything going more smoothly, he’s adjusting his routine to better fit this life, his expectations of himself and the kids and us, and he’s starting more to feel a part of what’s going on. He contributes more time to the house and I think he’s even sleeping better - which says a lot for an insomniac.

For the first few months he felt like he was on the outside looking in. The world changed so fast last January. Tish and I took on the lion’s share of parenting while he tried to land on his feet and for a while he wondered if he was being pushed out. Not a chance. We want him participating as fully as he can manage. This whole big experiment will only succeed if all three adults share the load and it looks like that might happen. He’s Dad, after all, and that’s a central role in the boy’s lives, no matter how bumpy the relationships are.

Here’s hoping that life for Buddy can be a thing to look forward to day by day instead of just one trauma after another filled with constant disappointment. That would be a great Christmas gift to send him into the new year with.

"What time is it?" - Tio's First Post

Grampy is right. I mean it's wrong to disagree with the man in charge... right? But if I keep getting the same answer in my head, when I forget to do something now and again..... I always get, "But I will" it doesn't seem to work anymore. Not that it was an exuse, it really wasn't. I said it because I mean it... but I get it... the chores, my timing for certant things, it's all very easy to remember. But exactly when I use my time... I forget all about the freakin’ thing. It's a real problem because there's a way to remember it without forgeting it at the last second. It's hard for me to remember. Other stuff, yup perfect, there's no time limit for the computer so there's no hassle. But I mean c'mon! Seriously! It's not that hard. I agree with Grampy, but Ijust don't know why I can't remeber my job.
This is Tio.... Peace.

The Witch’s Daughter

A couple of years ago, I was climbing our tree fort with Kit. He was six or seven. We were playing with our dolls. He had some Barbies and I had a Sally doll from Nightmare Before Christmas. We were thinking about writing a story and, to get us started I asked what he'd call his story. He said 'The Witch's Daughter'.

I loved the idea then and I still love it. As a writer, there are so many angles to what you could do with a concept like this. Imagine the witch's daughter going to school, her gingerbread house off the beaten track, an outcast because of her mom. This could be a picture book or a novel. How about the witch's daughter as a teen torn between her mom's life and the village life. Would she protect her mom from the torch wielding mob or join them because of peer pressure? Imagine the middle aged woman dealing with her young life in therapy after being raised under the shadow of her mother's wicked life. Of course, there is the version where she is an acolyte into the world of witches, either ala Samantha Stevens or a dark tale of being inducted into the world of evil.

There are so many richly complex notions in this one title that I almost wish I wrote magic tales instead of science fiction. Of course, he didn’t have any idea what to do with it. After all, he was only six, but he liked the idea and it was his.

It’s great watching a young imagination develop.

The Most Common Word in the English Language.

I always thought that ‘THE’ was the most used word in English with ‘E’ being the most common letter. I think I learned that from Scrabble or Sherlock Holmes. Turns out I was wrong. (And so was Holmes, for that matter!)

Trapped in the car with the three stooges on our way to Walmart it came to me in a flash. ‘Grampy’ is by far the most common word.

“Grampy, can I have....”
“Grampy, what time is it...”
“Grampy, I don’t understand this...”
“Grampy, I’m bored...”
“Grampy, what‘s for supper...”
“Grampy, he’s saying things...”

Some of you might think that perhaps ‘Mom’ or ‘Nana’ or some such gets far more use. Well...we’ll just have to differ on that.

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

When I was a kid I lived inside my daydreams. They were so vivid and so much a part of my life that if I ever write an autobiography, it’ll be from my daydream perspective. At eight, I was a secret agent driving a Jaguar XKE, a superhero named Fantam, and a half inch high adventurer. By 10, I owned a famous nightclub where I saved world leaders from international counterfeiters. In middle school, I safely crash landed a sabotaged airplane with all my classmates aboard on a desert island where we all lived for a year before being rescued. By the time I finished high school I’d flown a balloon solo around the world, traveled the entire solar system, and invented an undersea helicopter. It was a busy life and cost me a public school education by the time I finally turned to the real world.

Tio and Kit sing. Both of them. They hum and sing aloud without even noticing. I never thought much about this when I only saw them for a few hours a week or an overnight twice a month but it was constant. Living with them this past summer became difficult, not because they were noisy, messy kids who needed attention and were underfoot all day long, but because they were always singing. Every minute of every day. When they weren’t talking they were singing over each other, with each other, and at each other. It drove me out of my wits, invading my brains so thoroughly that I couldn’t think. Literally could not think. I had to ban them from the upstairs living room if they were going to sing. “Do it downstairs, outside, or in your own head, just not here.” Wanting to stay upstairs with me they tried to stop, but failed. By the end of summer, they had at least learned to recognize they were doing it and had some success in controlling it. After school started I learned from their teachers that they both disrupted the class with their singing and humming. Fortunately, by that point they’d come far enough to curb it in school and they’re much better at home.

As the summer drew to a close, I was starting to formulate a theory about why they do this. It’s an avoidance mechanism. Humming fills your thoughts with a distraction so that thinking about and being involved in real events around you become less vivid, less real. It occurred to me that my daydreaming had was the same thing: a way to avoid the troubles in my world. An entire childhood spent living in a fog seemed a matter of choice to me before. But looking back I could see that I desperately wanted to avoid the troubles in my family, my fears at school, and a world too large for me.

The proof of this came in car rides. I would tell Tio to be quiet saying, “Let’s talk. Tell me stuff, ask questions, whatever.” After a few moments of quiet, he’d start divulging horror stories about the drug abuse and misbehavior that went on in his former home and life. The silence was an ipecac that churned ugly and frightening thoughts up from the sub of his conscious. We talked about them without judgement so he could relate them without fear of retaliation, so that they could go their own way and he could move on with his life.

There’s still a lot hidden inside those heads, camouflaged by song and other mind games we all protect ourselves with. I guess as a writer and former daydreamer I have plenty still stuck to the bottom of my own cauldron that I dare not dredge up. I don’t want to force the boys to face their fears but I know it will be healthier for them when they do.

Can’t Live With Them...

Tio came to me yesterday with a problem. “Grampy?” he said with worry in his voice, “I don’t know what to do.” We sat down and I asked what the trouble was. He was serious, perplexed, and at odds. “There are two girls at school who want to go out with me. What should I do? Which one should I pick?”

Hmmmmm.
Tio’s been a ladies man since he was in first grade. He always had a ‘girlfriend’ in his mind or on the line. Every year there was a string of female classmates that he fancied and every year he got them to “go out” with him or shoot him down, which he always took graciously enough. The first day of school when he moved back into our town last midyear he came home and told me he had one picked out. She shot him down three days later.

I was just like him from first grade on, too. I was always in love with one girl or another in my class. Except for me my relationship with the girl in question was entirely imaginary. I daydreamed all sorts of fantastic adventures I’d have with a pigtailed blonde or brunette in tights and bangs on my are while we rescued the school from fires, intruders, or traveled the world after diamond smugglers. I never dared to actually talk with them. That would be suicide. Nuh Uhn.

Not our Tio. He never had a problem telling a girl he likes her and now that he’s reached the age of 12 and adolescence is just over the crest, things may start to get more serious. Right away I thought of a great William Steig cartoon from the 1930's where a 12 year old boy has a girl his age backed against the malt shop window, he with a mischievous glint in his eye and her in doubtful anticipation. The boy says, “I don’t buy dames chocolate malteds for nuttin’, y’know.” I suddenly saw Tio in that picture and it made me smile. He’s going to be a heartbreaker. Ladies beware.

I looked him in the eye and gave him my sage advice for the day. “If only I had been so lucky to have your problem.”

When You’re Full of Beans...

Last night we ate “alfredo au poulet maison” and “haricots au beurre faux et la muscade” (For the layman that’s homemade chicken alfredo and beans with margarine and nutmeg - but doesn’t it sound so tasty en francais?). The kids gobbled it up and I put it on the list for something to make again. After supper they wanted to raid their dad’s stash of peanut butter fudge swirl ice cream. Buddy has to put his name on it or it gets swallowed whole on the first day it lands in the freezer. Since he wasn’t home from work yet, we debated and in the end they each got a small bowl.

Kit brought his empty bowl over to the sink and said. “Mmmmm. I sure do love Dad’s cooking.”

“Me, too,” I replied.

Mutual Cooperation = Mutual Respect

I’m trying out a new formula for getting Tio to understand the importance of keeping his end of a bargain. We’ve been butting heads over him not doing his chores or letting down his end of a deal and expecting privileges anyway. I’m tired of a A grade student who can’t seem to follow simple instructions about TV and video game time, cleaning up after himself and then keeps asking me to explain it all over again every time he drops the ball.

I said, “If you behaved this dumb in football practice, Coach would throw you off the team. If you were this thick in math class, you’d be in summer school. This stuff is remedial and you know it. You can’t treat me like I’m an idiot, or like you want me to think you’re an idiot..”
He agreed he was being lazy and at least that got us off that mark.

I wrote down the following formula: Mutual Cooperation = Mutual Respect. “Do you know what that means?” He said no. I wasn’t surprised, though I should have been because we’ve been over it and over it. I explained that if we do what each other expects, we won’t fight and we’ll respect each other. Easy as that. His expectation of me is to have access to video games, get an allowance, get driven all over the planet to friends, sports, and whatever. My expectation of him is a set amount of vid/TV, do homework & reading, take out the trash, and make a bed. Oh, and while your at it could you brush your teeth a couple of times a day.

He’s already broken the deal. I can’t really decide if it’s simply laziness or if the concept of mutual trust is over his emotional abilities. Some children understand respect instinctively, others take a long time to get there. The report card he brought home yesterday with the A’s and “Outstanding” up and down the line makes me think he understands the concept. I just don’t think he understand why it should apply to him..

Unfortunately, understanding moral and behavioral concepts is more than an intellectual exercise.

What’s Up With Doc?

I should tell you a bit more about Doc. We call him that because he loves Bugs Bunny and “What’s Up Doc?” was one of the first phrases we got him to say clearly.
When he came here at 4 ½ he was still in diapers full time, his speech was way underdeveloped so he could barely pronounce consonants and his social skills were lagging. That didn’t mean he was a slow thinker or not a nice boy. He just hadn’t been exposed to or taught anything. I sure didn’t want to be unloading his shorts day and night so within 3 weeks he was toilet trained for keeps. Next, we worked with the preschool’s speech therapist and started insisting at home that he enunciate the words he was trying to say instead of garble them all together one long string of vowels. We really pushed it through the spring and summer and now, 9 months later, his speech is reaching kindergarten level. We hope that the trend stays good so he’ll be ready for first grade next fall.

He’s really a great kid. He likes to be with other kids, he chatters endlessly and repeats questions until the end of time. On the downside, he’s borderline compulsive obsessive and it take him a long time to get comfortable in new surroundings. No surprise there because he spent his first couple of years moving around more than Mayflower Inc.. Both his brothers have moved so many times in their lives I doubt they know all the places they’ve called home for a day.

I’ve read studies that correlate low income, less educated families directly to underdeveloped children and that the better the education the parents have the better chance at learning the kids have. That’s certainly been the case with these boys. Their parents struggled to make ends meet and have lagged on the income/education curve. But they both grew up in families with education and chose not to pursue higher learning, and limiting their options for higher earning. So what is it that makes them fall smack into the middle of this trend? Surely, they know helping their kids from an early age is beneficial, that working with the school only enhances their child’s chances, that involving themselves in every step towards early comprehension pays off in spades.

Yet Doc is a perfect example of a boy poised to fall through the cracks through no fault of his own. The schools in this country are collapsing under the weight of being too many things for our children. They can’t be police, social workers, parents, and teachers all rolled into one. First because we can’t afford it, and second because it doesn’t work.

I know today’s parents have a lot on their plates. Keeping up a decent standard of living calls for two incomes, no one is home full time anymore, and kids have a lot more distractions and demands on their time than it seemed even a generation ago. But parents of all educational backgrounds have overly busy work schedules and raise kids in this social environment.

I’d hate to think that a poor education/income = just don’t care.