Choose wisely the hill for which you are willing to die.
Sunday, 23. August 2009, 16:00:00
My Mom gave me that quote when I was whining about the children a while back and I've been thinking with it since. It is a powerful datum to use in dealing with children, but I am finding myself using military metaphors WAY too much lately. the kids really aren't the enemy. That's the real failing, military technology has as it's underlying purpose breaking the enemy's spirit because a demoralized opponent is easiest to manipulate to our will. This is similar to our technology for handling pets, break them to our will and they stop pooping on the rug, tearing or chewing the furniture and our clothes, etc. The problem with using that strategy with children should be fairly obvious, ultimately we want them to grow up into contributing members of our society and their contribution will be a result of their own determination.
My travails at work have been a heavy contributing factor to this philosophy. It really has been feeling like a war zone with the changes brought on by our new General Manager. Well, to be completely honest also with the loss of our old Ops Mgr, Mike Long, for whom I served happily both at Sitel for General Motors, and then relatively happily with this employer at the outset. Our new GM is also a Mike, but his management style is at the far end of military to almost Penal colony. In other words, "my way or the highway" is on his GOOD days and there aren't very many of those. Working for ACS started out being "way better than nothing" and I really can't see any improvement of that condition down the road our leaders are mapping for us now. However, it still is better than nothing and nothing seems to be the alternative as our country struggles out of the economy left us by the Bush Trillion Legacy, so I'm trying to stifle my grumbles around the workplace. This new "Stifled Policy" seems to be netting dividends too, I started a new shift today, Monday through Wednesday plus Saturday, 7:00a to 6:00p with one of the best supervisors still available, Rick Johnson. There isn't any hope for more money, which is vital, but it does reduce my commute expenses by 20% which is a very good thing.
Sorry, I digress because the subject isn't really my deplorable employment scene, it is how do I deal with my new role as "Poppy" to Nick and Ty and although this scene is going to color my attitude, it's really just an excuse for mismanaging the raising of the kids. And, military or pet breaking technology ain't gonna get it if we want our children's self-determination intact upon completion. Even if it were possible to break the kids, which it isn't with our children (they both got full measure of their mother's stubornness which is considerable to almost extraordinary) we'd still have to enforce our will on the broken children on a constant basis. Constant vigilance toward enforcement is more like Prison technology and I'm certainly not sanguine about the potential results of raising them like criminals. So, shackles, dead bolts and closed circuit cameras / monitors aren't going to be necessary either. So how do we protect our carpets, doors, and other possessions from the onslaught of out-of-control children? Yeah, there's the rub, eh?
Erde50 wrote a wonderful blog about the handling of his teenager on an incident that could have been a "standard disaster". I particularly enjoyed his "He knows by now, that in situations like this, I’ll cheat and lie to win, . . ." Reminds me of "Old age and treachery will beat skill and youthful enthusiasm every time." I've got a little over five years before I'll be dealing with a teenager, but that day is going to come unless God calls me home early for good behavior (not likely:). And the journey continues with me and Maggie a few clues richer.
One hill for which I was willing to die was a pretty enormous one. We left our extremely cool home on Mom's farm to move into Newberg because their Public School system was one of the best in Northwest Oregon. This was not an easy decision to make and implementation has been a total nightmare. This photo shows Mom's house on the right, then moving left is our "not home", Mom's greenhouse, the Equipment shed, Big Barn and Llama Barn. This photo doesn't let you see the Chicken Coop behind Big Barn where Maggie had to give away her 25 "ladies" as a consequence of this decision.
Now you can see the Wiggle-Line-Sign on College St that reminds me to turn on my blinker preparatory to the left turn into MountainView Duplex Homes 
and the slow down to <10mph to navigate into my parking spot. Don't fail on the speed limit, not only are there speed bumps in the road, there're 9 children that live here and a bunch of more that visit with little or no warning.
See? There's two of them now dutifully wearing their helmets so they can ride around on the easement without suffering the wrath of Grammy or Poppy if they get caught riding without being shod in shoes and helmet! BWaahhaahhaa
And now we arrive at #15, new home of Doug, Maggie, Nicholas and Tyrone.
Did you notice the Greenhouse, Equipment shed, Big Barn, Llama Barn or Chicken Coop? Did you notice the half mile lane of beautiful crops on the approach to the house? Right, you probably didn't notice the 60 acres out back behind the orchard either did you? Know why? Because they ain't there!
Although you have to admit that the back yard here is pretty fantastic for a 4 bedroom, 2 bath duplex home rental that I can afford on nowhere near enough money. We are definitely enjoying some heavenly assistance on this endeavor. I'm truly hoping that heavenly assistance will continue through this coming times because now that we're abandoning military, police and penal technology in raising Nick and Ty,
that leaves me with Sales technology. We're going to try and convince the kids that they actually WANT to behave in a civilized manner. We've already started today, I'll probably let you know how it goes.
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WIDGETIZE
Manpreet Singh Dhillon # 14. November 2009, 04:48
You seems quite an interesting person sir.
Doug Hood # 25. November 2009, 04:52
Smiley
Manpreet Singh Dhillon # 25. November 2009, 12:54
To be honest I always look forward to recieve some response/knowledge from experienced senior citizens.
Doug Hood # 10. December 2009, 15:16
Don't dig yourself in too deep Mani. :-)
Manpreet Singh Dhillon # 11. December 2009, 01:04
But really in my life I have gained a lot of things from elder people whether my grandparent or some friends like you.
So Can you tell me something about you, only if you don't mind?