The Older I Get The Smarter My Dad Gets

November 10, 2009

11/10/09

                                  Nederland Colorado sunset

I can tell you that if you’re young and you don’t understand the title of this entry..someday you will.

Where I grew up (Northern Alberta Canada) folks marry young and for the most part stay married. As a kid I knew what divorce but hadn’t really experienced it first hand. My mother and father are still married after forty plus years and I couldn’t even fathom the idea of the two of them being apart.

Me,…I’ve been married three times(third times a charm). I’ve been with my wife Krista for over eleven years and we have two children together. If you’re a regular Rant reader you’ve met them.

<—–Hunter and Mylee when they were little.

I also have a daughter from my first marriage who’s all grown up doing her own thing.

Her mother and I were divorced shortly after she was born and I didn’t have any children with my second wife.

So for most of my oldest daughter’s life I played long distance dad. That wasn’t a whole lot of fun and it’s not something I advise doing if you can help it. Sh-it happens we all have a past.

In my opinion raising children is by far the hardest thing we do in our lives. For eighteen years (or more) you have the responsibility of totally caring for another human being or in my case beings.

Caring for a child consists of many things such as providing food, shelter, clothes, encouragement, protection, discipline and teaching. Teaching your children values, manners, respect and most importantly love and compassion.

There’s no manual for raising children so what and how you teach has to come from your heart or your own personal experiences. We don’t want our children to make the same mistakes we did growing up so we try to give them the benefit of our wisdom.

The problem is when you’re under twenty five years old your hearing hasn’t fully developed.

<——–My dad  and my late Grandpa.

I’ll explain,….by that I mean the precious nuggets of wisdom that are passed on from the older generation to the younger generation are not fully comprehended. Those words of wisdom may have been heard, even batted around inside their head, but at that age it just doesn’t sink in.

 It’s hard to listen while wearing an I-pod and texting.

                                 “Remember son, …The older you get the smarter I get“.

I was tough on my parents. I was the oldest in my family and everything I did was uncharted territory for them. I often thought to myself that my parents had no clue what it was like to be a kid. Most times I felt they didn’t understand the pressures of being an eleven year old American in a Canadian High School.

How could they know how hard it was to fit in school when you’re a foreigner with a speech impediment. (I used to have a bad stutter, now…not so much J ). From that experience I learned your have to confront and conquer your fears or the world will eat you up.

One thing about my pops is he was always clear with his expectations and my would rarely if ever back down from something he said or a rule that he had set.

 In the real world they call that standing your ground.

                                 “Remember son,…The older you get the smarter I get”.

My father taught me how to respect my elders, how to take pride in what you do by doing a good job the first time, how to stick to my guns and never back down and to always do what you say you’re going to do. He also taught me how to hunt, camp, and tell a good story.

Yes his methods may have not been the way that I choose to do things but as I mentioned earlier, there is no manual for raising kids.

                                            I get it now pops…It all makes sense.

                                 I’m D the Rockpile Ranter, and my dad’s a smart guy.

Written by RANTER Posted in Ranter's Blog Entries Tagged with Raising Children