Parenting 100% (You knew it had to happen)

Parenting at 100%. That is a sentence that scares the heck out of me. It is introspective, because I am constantly thinking to myself: Am I doing this as well as I can? It is external, because I am often thinking: Do people think I am parenting as well as I can? I shouldn't be worried about the external. People will never tell you that you are a bad parent, just their friends. My story is it is to hide some insecurities about their own parenting or elevate themselves. We all want to be good parents. Parenting is not a contest, though I think for many people it has become one. I see the memes on facebook all the time. If you love your kids share this meme. Problem solved. Modern society has made it so easy for us all to look like good parents. In fact(which this isn't a fact at all) I believe that someday if you don't share those memes it will be fed to some sort of Orwellian computer ran by Child Protective Services. 100% parenting is not helicopter parenting, it is about being in the present, not consistently inserting yourself into the present in order for my child to succeed at another's expense (pretty difficult to do in sports, but that is another blog for another time).

 Parenting in the present is tough, so much fights for our time and resources. When you just want to relax after work and not....do....anything. It's your time right? Oh....so.....wrong. I chose to have these children. I didn't have to. We could have skipped our way through life with not a care in the world. I chose it. My wife chose it. In fact if you are reading this rather than reading your child a book or going outside with them. I would prefer you stop reading this and go do that. You can always come back to this when you are pretending that you are working tomorrow. (That's a joke. Your boss will definitely let you go if you think reading this specific blog is more important than taking the hourly reading at the Nuclear Power Plant or watching the radar at the airport.)
I put out a lot of effort with my children, especially my 7 year old son. The effort for him is mostly all physical, and I barely can keep up with him. He volunteers me to be "All times quarterback" with him and all the neighbor kids. If you have ever worked a 10 or 12 hour day on your feet and come home to a kid happy to see you, but then wants you to do some running and throwing. It can be a monumental effort. It also should be noted, he is the only person to wish I would be his quarterback. So,I should be flattered and want to do this every time he asks. He also thinks Manning is a terrible QB and pulls up his college records as some sort of proof. I don't argue anymore, I just nod my head. He is constantly checking the interwebbery for any sort of proof to back up his teams and players as the best. I have no idea where he gets that from. OK. I have a small idea. (The key here is my son somehow sees me as better QB than Peyton Manning, and that's what is important. I have gone through painful effort to bring that to light in this blog.) If you haven't noticed he is ALL boy.

My 9 year daughter is a little more difficult. She has the creative side of my wife and I, and maybe a wee bit of stubbornness. She likes dancing, art, writing and reading. She also likes the sensory overload of television, ipads, computers and whatever else blinks. It has become something of a struggle to get her to go do something constructive. She has a great and quirky mind that is wonderful to watch when she is being creative or coming up with some of her entrepreneurial ideas. Sometimes she is very focused on her tasks and maybe directs a little too much.  She is assertive, something I think she'll need in life, as I see too many people that are not. She just need to learn a little of the cooperation and coaxing different situations into win-win. She's 9(going on 36), so that is something she will develop over time. She reads herself to sleep at night and it isn't very often we don't wake her up in the morning surrounded by dozens of book on her bed. If you haven't noticed she is ALL girl.

In order to achieve some 100% parenting with these two. We have started doing little weekly goals with them, as well as a family night where we establish the goals and play some games. Last week our family goal was just to be a little nicer to each other. This went well, and I think the kids had minimum fighting and arguing. If either of them were mean to the other they would have to buy the victim a small toy, trinket, candy or gum. I think he only owes her 3 little items.

Personal goals went well for the boy. He said he would be nice to the dog. This doesn't seem like it would be hard for most kids, but a lot of kids have littler or older brothers to practice double leg takedowns and half nelsons on. Trying to perform an inside cradle on a black lab will more than likely get you bit. He did a great job, and the dog paid more attention to him than ever, even laying with her head on him. His goal for the week is to do 12 pushups, 12 sit ups, 50 jumping jacks(down from the 100 he originally threw out there)and run a mile every day, except a couple where he would not have the time to do it. Although he offered to just run in place for 20 minutes. I agreed to do those with him.(That's why I convinced him to do 50 jumping jacks. I'm still a little too floppy to do 100 and retain my self esteem).

My daughter's goal went about nowhere last week. She wanted to make something new on the rubber band loom that she had never done before. She watched youtube videos, maybe even started a little. I admit the rubberband loom perplexes me as much as Minecraft. In the end she gave up even when I prodded her to keep trying. So, I'm not sure if she is on board with the whole goal setting yet. Though she agreed to go two nights this week without electronics of any kind. I agreed to do that with her as well. I will maintain my phone, other than that we'll be cut off from the world for a couple nights this week. I'm also hoping she will do the extra exercise with her brother and I.

In all of these goals we are trying to keep open communication with the two of them. Really get answers about their days and if anything is bothering them. The goals should take effort, but should be achievable for them. This hopefully will make them better goal setters and achievers as they progress, or they could end up hating goals. It's a fine line.

We(when I say we, I am talking about my wife and I, I am not implying the readers of this article are part of we. If you are inserting yourself as part of said "We", well then I guess my work is done here. I'm also using the term "article" pretty loosely here.) know we can't be perfect parents, but I also know we can always do more. There are plenty of times in the past I'm sure I should have went outside with the kids, versus finishing watching the last 10 minutes of a Simpsons episode I already had seen before. Now, I try to live in the present with them, which is in my goals. If I am not doing anything that is part of my other goals, I respond quickly either to help them or to give them a reason they may have to wait until one of us can help them. Parenting 100% is by no means meant for perfection, it is giving it everything I have, and knowing we did do the very best we could, rather than sharing a meme as a bleak offering to the facebook gods and soothe my own insecurities. Of course we love our kids, but what are we doing about it? Have a nice week!

(Small disclaimer: I am not a certified child development specialist, or a specialist in anything really. Most times I am glad we get up and get these kids to school on time with very little frustration. These are my own observations, tips, tricks, and goals. If you want to use them and they don't work, remember I don't have any money so don't come blaming me. (You also may notice I love parentheses, I am well aware.) If you think your child needs real help and professional therapy, please do so.)

I think I need to back pedal a little bit. Not in a bad way. I need to explain what this whole 100% thing is about. It's not about running off and having these amazing adventures that have me hang gliding off of cliffs in the Caribbean. People who do that are great, but my question is did you love your family with all your heart and action? Did you succeed in loving yourself and who you are? If not why were you doing something so stupid without accomplishing something far greater. If so great, then jump off the cliff! It's about a life of actually giving a 100% into everything I want to do, especially if those things are what I choose to do. It's about loving my wife and family 100% and not going through the motions some mornings or night or whenever. It's about being in the present with those people when I am with them. It's about not waiting until the commercials to do something for a loved one. It's about attempting to actualize my own dreams and launch a career that I want, not the one that everyone else thinks I should have. It's about the little things that can be taken care of just by getting up and doing them rather than just talking about them or complaining to the person that will listen. 100% means you are giving it all you can, it does not mean that you will be instantly successful. Not everybody's 100% is the same, I would say Warren Buffet's 100% is a  little higher in the field of economics and investment than mine. Play the game the best you can and if you look and see that you did everything you could and it didn't work out, then I don't think you can hang your head on that. It is all 100% application to get a desired result whether it's love, kids, work, or self. The point is you choose to do something you choose to do it 100%, or don't do it and explain why, or even remove yourself from that situation when neither your heart nor your head are in it. The best results are always when you have given 100% and achieved a win-win!

Dreams and thoughts happen in your head, they do not conjure themselves into the real world without a call to action by yourself. If there is no call to action then your dreams will remain in your head. Ask anyone I know what my dream used to be, it would be that I wanted a restaurant. Any day of the week I wanted a restaurant. I get to call the shots, I'd get to design it top to bottom, blah blah blah blah. Now ask me how much thought I put into action. I've spend most of my life living the boss' dream. I have no money. I didn't know anyone with money. I didn't want investors because then it wouldn't be my restaurant. All the stories I ran in order to prevent myself from buying into a conjured goal I never wanted. I chose that line of thinking. I chose not to try and fulfill what I perceived as a dream at the time. Two things good came out of the fact I don't own restaurant. The first is I don't own a restaurant and the 2nd is I don't own a restaurant. My mind turned that into a form of ambition and would be a measure of my success. Instead of really looking at it and saying "You don't even want this dream." Perhaps I did at one time, and I might again in the future. When I'm ready for that and I want to do it, I will and I will put 100% behind the action of bringing it to fruition. The worst thing about having this kind of dead-end Dream, I never moved past it to really see the Dream I wanted. I would set no other goals, because I had told everybody else this is what I wanted. In hindsight it might be actually the only time not putting 100% into something produced an inadvertent win-win. I didn't end up with a restaurant I didn't want to own, which is a win! And I didn't drag anyone else along for the ride of a dead-end Dream! A win for them, though they'll never know it!

Setting goals is probably second nature to people. I have set goals. Not often and had really no plan behind the goal, other than I am going to do it. I'm sure many people that read this might think I am just plain weird. How in all these years could I possibly never set any real goals? I really just back-burnered any goals I set for work and just took those work-oriented goals as my own. Goals you don't set for yourself are very rarely successful in my opinion. Even if they are, they don't have any real meaning. Those were someone else's goals I just succeeded at. That's pretty joyless. In order to achieve anything in this life it's imperative to set a goal that I want, and I'm pretty sure most people could agree with that line of thinking. However, if the work is your goal and you are doing the goals because of work, then that would play out in your favor.

Not giving 100% robs a lot of things from a lot of people. If I don't give your family 100% emotionally it robs them of truly getting to know someone they love and vice versa. If I don't give a 100% in taking care of my health, it robs me of the energy I need to achieve my goals! If I don't choose a career I want to give a 100% to, it robs the employer or myself, and my family of a lot. If I don't give a 100% to anything I choose to do it hurts someone or myself.
I've done all of those things. it's not something you want to stand up in a room full of people and throw out there as an ice-breaker.

Now, this might seem rather bleak than a victory after running down those paragraphs. I will turn the conversation towards good news! I have been setting goal after goal, and with great success! My wife and I have a weekly goal chat, as well as work on our relationship through a specific set of goals. I am writing 1 page(or more) a day in one shape or another. We are helping our kids set small goals and getting them started on making that a part of their lives so they can make it a habit. I am running 1 mile a day. It's not much but when you see 240 pounds thundering at you, it's truly a sight to behold! I am not stating these goals to brag. I am calling myself to action. The consequence of failing at any of these goals means I have to answer people to asking me and either answering honsestly or flat out lying. Living at 100% doesn't necessarily include lying, except for telling people that you haven't planned them a surprise party when you have. I love tips, tricks and any other little tidbits you may have personally to help me out, and in turn I agree to keep writing these blogs as payment. I choose to do this, it did not choose me. Living 100% is not easy, and I don't know if I'll ever TRULY achieve it in an existential sense, but it's good to have goals.

(Some quick housekeeping:Yes I am moving the blog from simplesite.com over to BlogSpot.com. It is an infinitely better blog site and instead of lamenting and trying to force the issue on the other site, this one has a lot more versatility. I choose to move it! I will cut and paste and move all previous blogs over to this site and let the other one go bye-bye. Moving the blogs over is one of the reason I rehashed the theory behind living 100%. Another sidenote, I infinitely love the restaurant business and everything it entails. The people are some of the best friends I will ever have. Anyone opening a restaurant has my support. I just don't want one of my own or to work directly in the managing operations of one.)