11/16/20
Joan and I both come from broken homes. Her parents were divorced, remarried and divorced again. Her mother wouldn’t allow any contact with her father. For our wedding, Joan walked down the aisle alone. Joe was there for the ceremony but left immediately following. My parents’ divorce had less animosity. Our father was still in our lives. There were visits and support.
But we were both on the receiving end of what we wanted to ensure would never happen to our children. Part of that commitment meant that we would never allow our parents, or anyone else for that matter, tell us how to raise our children.
Our family was planned, both in the number of children and when they were born.
BEDTIME
Bedtime was big, especially for me. Joan was a stay-at-home mom and got to spend all day with both boys. So bedtime was mostly my time. It usually consisted of reading a book while in the rocking chair we had in the nursery. My prayer during that time was always, “Dear God, let me raise [this boy].”
Bedtime was bedtime. Our boys learned early that crying for us after we put them in bed was not going to work. Unless they were sick or in pain, we let them cry.
INSTRUCTIONS AND COUNTING
I still am frustrated when in a grocery store and hear a child throwing a tantrum for something they want. It usually goes something like this:
“Mommy, I want [xyz].
No, you can’t have that.
(Crying)
Be quiet.
(Louder crying)
If you don’t stop it, we’re going to leave — and I’ll spank you.
(Screaming)
I mean it.
Be quiet…..
1…….
2…….
You’d better stop.
3…….
Ok….if I get the [whatever the kid wanted], will you stop?
Child gets what s/he wants.
For our kids, “No” meant “No”. And an instruction was to be followed. We didn’t count. Sometimes we would help. For example, if the instruction was to pick up toys, sometimes we would get down on the floor and help with the task, but the instruction was followed. Non compliance or hesitation would have consequences.
There was a time we had visitors (siblings and children). We asked the children not to go near our stairs. One of them headed that way. Joan asked her to stop and come back. When the parent didn’t get involved and the child didn’t comply, Joan went and picked up the child and brought her back to where we were sitting.
DISCIPLINE / SPANKING / TIME OUT / GROUNDING
Our grown son called to ask for an example of how we responded when he did not comply. His family was making a video talking about obeying parents. We couldn’t think of an example…..because non compliance was so rare. I don’t know that we ever used “time out”. Typical low level discipline might include something like restricted TV time or not getting to play with a particular toy.
Spankings were only for blatant disobedience, defiance, lying or for doing something that could be dangerous. There was a time our boys were in a physical fight with each other. I spanked both of them. Both thought that unfair because the other one started it. My response,
“You should not have been fighting. I don’t know who started it. This way I know I got the guilty one.”
We limited TV time and replaced it with encouraging to read books, play games, etc.
CHURCH
The family went to church. Wednesday evenings were not an absolute with us….for two reasons. Some school, scouting and other activities happened during the week and we didn’t sacrifice those for church. I took some direct heat from one pastor for that position and we have heard the concept addressed in sermons. The second reason was that our kids were never huge on youth group, mostly because neither liked many of the stupid/silly games and activities they had.
EXTRACURRICULAR/SUMMER SPORTS
There was one summer where both boys were in swimming (different age groups and events) and baseball (different teams and levels) and trying to be at all events was difficult, fatiguing and nearly impossible. There was one weekend where David had an event in South Bend while John had one a couple hours south…..and we were going back and forth trying to be there for both boys. An alternative could have been to split them up with each of us, and we may have done some of that…..but decided to make them choose.
David chose swimming and choir (show choir).
John chose baseball and jazz band.
That also prevented competing and comparing.
SCHOOL CHOICES / PUBLIC vs PRIVATE vs HOMESCHOOLING
As the time approached to send them to school, we liked the idea of homeschooling. We were both licensed teachers and Joan was going to be staying home anyway. But we also wanted them to experience music ensembles and at that time in this county it was not possible to do both. Homeschool students could not go to the public school for band or choir. They can now, but that was a deal breaker for us at the time. We looked at Canterbury, but their ensembles were not terrific and the school was very expensive.
We decided to send them to public school, but we were significantly involved in what was happening. I was a Parent/Teacher Officer and we were both involved in those groups. We ensured ours were able to participate in “Project Challenge”. At first, it was a pull-out program where GT students were pulled out of the regular classroom for a day per week. Eventually it became a two year program at Horace Mann Elementary. There was one classroom of students who were together for two years. One of the strongest effects was the literature and theater pursuits, such as studying and performing Shakespere plays.
When the boys went to Middle School, that program stopped. We failed to stay on top of what was happening in John’s case, but jumped into a situation David encountered.
He and another student were permitted to take 8th grade Algebra in 7th grade at Crestview Middle School. Those were the two highest grades in the class. Toward the end of 7th grade year, Joan and I visited the Algebra teacher to ask what would happen to David for 8th grade. He wrapped the answer around the benefits of going over formulas and such, but basically was telling us he would repeat 8th grade Algebra in 8th grade.
“That is totally unacceptable. David and Casey were the two highest scores in the class. They don’t need to repeat the class.”
He referred us to the principal, Dr. Bradley, who pounded his fist on his desk as he scolded us with,
“I get so tired of parents pushing their kids.”
My response,
“We’re not pushing David. We just want to prevent you from putting brick walls in front of him.”
Eventually, we found an advocate who coordinated a bus to take those two to the high school daily. They took two high school math classes during 8th grade.
We jumped in again during David’s Freshman year when he was coming home upset and discouraged by his Spanish class. He disliked the games they were playing to learn things and was even causing some problems in the class. We visited the teacher who readily admitted, “Yes, he is bored.” They put him in a Spanish IV class, which challenged him to catch up (jumping from Spanish I to IV, but he did — and then thrived at it.
We established that we wouldn’t hesitate to come to the school or approach a teacher if we felt something was out of whack. There was a time that David missed an assignment because the Varsity Singers were on tour. When reminding him of the assignment, the teacher said,
“You need to get this done. Grade reports go out soon and you and I both know your parents will be here if your grade suffers from this assignment.”
During David’s Sophomore year, we saw that he was running out of math options at the high school. After resistance to what we encountered at Crestview, they enabled David to take an advanced math class at Huntington University.
The college professor objected to having a high school student in his upper level math class. The teachers at the high school encouraged him to
“Just let him take the class. He’ll be fine.”
When the college students, thinking he looked too young to be there, asked him what year he was in, David’s response was “Junior year”.
A few weeks into the college class, the professor accused David of cheating. He wasn’t doing the work to show the answers he was coming up with.
When confronted, David asked,
“Is the goal to do the work or to solve the problem?”
Unconvinced that he could get the answers the way he was, David was permitted to work some problems under the professor’s watchful eye.
The conclusion was something like….. “I don’t know how he is doing it, but he is doing it.”
By the end of the semester, the professor was inviting David to take an even higher level college class.
Something I’ve said multiple times over the years, usually when encouraging parents to advocate louder,
“The system worked for us — but we had to work the system.”
PRIVATE LESSONS
David had a few trombone lessons, but it was clear that his focus was going to be voice. He studied for a while with Dr. Wallace at Huntington College until Wallace accepted a job elsewhere.
When he got to the high school, Thaine Campbell recommended John take trumpet lessons with Alan Severs, who was the principal trumpeter in the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, but was also music director at College Park church which made lessons conveniently located for us.
Once Severs and the church parted ways, we had to travel to Alan’s house just short of the I-69 entrance from Highway 24. After a while, Alan said he wanted to go from 30 minute to 60 minute lessons. Jokingly, but not really, I asked if there was a volume discount. He was quite expensive. The hour lessons would be about $40 each. When I asked, his response was,
“You get twice my time for twice the price.”
Prior to his driving himself, I sat in Alan’s driveway writing out a check and said to John,
“I am paying for your college education one week at a time. By the time you get ready for college, you need to be good enough that your school will pay you to come.”
He was — and they did.
Alan did good work with John, but there were things I didn’t like about his professionalism and attitudes. His posture in the orchestra is terrible and he is almost always the last musician on the stage prior to the start of the performance. He got John several performance gigs, including some time playing with the Philharmonic on summer touring performances and in their brass quintet. But when it came to John’s participation in local church cantatas, Alan’s strong position was,
“If they don’t pay, you don’t play.”
JOBS DURING HIGH SCHOOL
John started his job delivering the Herald Press local newspaper as soon as he was old enough. At the time, he also was responsible for collecting payments. What a great experience in responsibility and customer service. John was named “Carrier of the Month” three times. His route was several blocks from our house so I would drive the route with him on Sundays, assembling the paper in the van as he was delivering to the houses. When John injured his knee and was out of commission for several weeks, I did the route for him. That was a job.
Once he could drive, he got a job as a Host at the Bob Evans restaurant in Coventry.
David got a job at the local movie theater.
WHERE TO LIVE
One of the popular things going on as our children were school age was building a home in the rural part of the county. For us, walking distance to school was important. From our Vine Street house, the boys could walk to Central Elem without having to cross a major street. It was also walking distance to Crestview.
By the time they got to high school, we were in our Cherry Street home. The high school was one block over and about 4 blocks up.
SUMMER CAMPS
John spent every summer at camp. Stephen Foster camp was at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, KY. His dad spent every high school summer there too. John also went to camps at Butler University in Indianapolis and at Cumberland University in Tennessee.
David’s only summer camp experience was at Foster Camp one year.
John Gardner, Virtually Speaking 