You try giving away a free toy!?

Well, here I go with my Scrooge rant for this holiday season!

Many of you are probably familiar with the sterile, or maybe traditional is better, charitable organizations for getting toys and such to needy children in your area. As is typical this time of year, I get hit up from all angles to help out or make a child’s holiday brighter; and I am truly not knocking the organizations that assist with this each year. What I am complaining about is the impersonal and unfeeling WAY in which we seem to have allowed the gift of giving to have changed.

I have two children, though my son is too young to get this quite yet, but my daughter is seven and she has been privy to seeing her parents and those around her give to charities, shelters, etc. But what I was hoping to be able to do this year was to get a toy and actually allow her to give it, in the real sense, in person to a needy or less fortunate child. The anonymous nature in which we “give” these days builds no real moral fiber in our children. You buy a gift, you put it in a pile, and someone else distributes them. Thanks and Happy Holidays! WTF!?

I have been trying to find a way through local hospitals, shelters, and such to arrange to do this very thing this year and have, so far, been shut out! I mean, I get that we live in a ridiculously litigious society and everyone, including the beneficiary organizations want to cover their asses, or be P.C. or whatever, but come on! All I want to do is show my daughter just how much joy the act of real giving actually has on not only the receiver but the giver as well. Well, so far, no good. But I’ve not given up yet!

Between parent and person!

Please just be quiet and go upstairs and go to sleep. I understand that your tummy isn’t feeling good, but the heat is set the same way it was last night and the night before that. Yes, I believe that your tummy is hurting and I wish I could do something that made you feel better right away. I would trade places with you in a second if I could, to make your pain go away…no really I would!

These are the nightly rituals or a parent. Not you? Well, I guess I am just “one of those parents” then, huh? I am probably the most patient, caring, and loving parent you will ever meet and I don’t say that as a pat on my back, I say that because I genuinely and sincerely feel that each of us was cut out to be something and for me, that is being a parent! I’m not infallible, I’m not unrealistic, and I’m not even cocky! What I am is a man who lives and breathes as my children live and breathe!!

Do you get what I just said? Do you feel those words resonate through your very being? If not, either I didn’t word it as well as I thought I did, or you haven’t had the fortune to be a parent! (There could be any number of other reasons, come on I aint a shrink!)

Parents can be good, bad, competent, incompetent, ignorant, malicious, and any other word we, as a society use, to describe any other facet of that very society. The line, however, is drawn with this man in that I will not tolerate nor will I let a moment go by without getting down on the floor or the ground or into the car seat or the stroller or swing on the swing or the glider or crawl under the cover (not just a little but all the way down to the foot of the bed!)! I AM that guy! I AM that person! I AM that father!

Being THAT father is my life’s calling! My children not only know this and feel this, they actually GET this! They, as well as other children in my surround, come to me and almost instantly they seem to relate to me. I know you may call it childishness or some other symptom of a less than adult persona, but look at it through my eyes and in this manner. I sum it up in one thought, word, symptom…”If.” Not “If” only. Or “If” I had only…or any other resonance of that same phrase, sentiment, or emotion.

The world opens up to each of us in respect to our own sense of self and ability. Thankfully, mine found me right where I was; enjoying myself, smiling, and loving and living with my children!

I love you Ty and Kayla!

If you live, you will die...but when?

I know this sounds alarming and for all of us it is a dire consequence that we all must face! The simple truth of the mater is that if you live, you will die! In reality through it is an all too serious numbers game. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) data for 2004, 2,398,343 people died. While during that same year there were 4,115,590 births in the U.S. Not quite a two to one ratio, but close. At this rate we won’t need to worry quite as much about the death rate! This data shows births at a rate of 14 per 1000 population while death rates are approximately 8 per 1000 during that same year. Still seems we are moving towards global population overload, right, well not necessarily.

The death rate in the U.S. in 1940 was approximately 1 million less than it was in 2004** but when compared per thousand as we showed above the rate was 10.7. This shows that we have come a long way with our medical research and care, but are we moving forward wisely? We’ve eradicated or greatly reduced the number of illnesses or diseases that contributed to the mortality rates during the 1940’s, however, we have seen many new illnesses and/or maladies take their own prominent place and add to the mortality rates in recent years.

The troubling and curious piece to this puzzle is that even though we are living longer here in the U.S. and the birth rate is two times the death rate, the short sightedness of this theory is that while we continue to improve upon our healthcare system (for the most part-there’s a whole other article in here about the pitfalls and shortcomings of our system here) , in many parts of the world, the death rate is beginning to impinge upon the birthrate and when mass genocide, famines, wars, and pestilence is added in, we cant hope to continue to turn a blind eye to the needs of the rest of the world just because our resources are being utilized in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world.

“Of the 57 million deaths in 2002, 10.5 million were among children of less than five years of age, and more than 98% of these were in developing countries.” Also this… “Reviewing the latest global health trends, this chapter finds disturbing evidence of widening gaps in health worldwide. In 2002, while life expectancy at birth reached 78 years for women in developed countries, it fell back to less than 46 years for men in sub-Saharan Africa, largely because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. For millions of children today, particularly in Africa, the biggest health challenge is to survive until their fifth birthday, and their chances of doing so are less than they were a decade ago. This is a result of the continuing impact of communicable diseases. However, a global increase in noncommunicable diseases is simultaneously occurring, adding to the daunting challenges already facing many developing countries.” These are direct quotes from the WHO’s paper from 2003 entitled Shaping the Future. ***

Just my thoughts and I welcome yours.

* http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm ** http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pdf/mortality/nvsr54_13_t01.pdf *** http://whqlibdoc.who.int/whr/2003/9241562439.pdf

Play to learn?

I sit here this cold, yet warm and luxurious morning, drinking my hot cup of coffee (actually its probably more likely to be my third or fourth…whatever) and playing with my son. He is exploring his world through play and it hits me, where did I loose that ability? Was it just time that altered that part of me? When did I wake up and allow myself to believe it was acceptable to learn in un-fun ways?

I have always considered myself a fun loving, spontaneous, existential, (okay, okay), and well, I’ve always prided myself on my ability to have fun and laugh!…I obviously used to learn about things that way as well. I am just struggling with my memory of when that STOPPED?! I know many things and I have the ability to learn many more, but how did I learn those things I already know? I would imagine some of the most rudimentary of these things such as how to stand and walk probably were learned though trial and error, but I also believe that even through trial and error, I was probably having fun figuring out how not to butt plant every time I wanted to go pick up a toy. I KNOW I had fun learning to climb, I’ve been told since I was very young that I had an innate sense about how to find my way to the top of something. I am told, when I was but a wee lass, I saw something, what it is isn’t truly important (candy!!) on the top of my dresser and instead of getting upset that it was out of reach I proceeded to pull out each drawer in succession and create a makeshift flight of stairs to the prize!

I realize I got a bit away from my point, sorry. But when did we as adults (or have you?) given up learning through play? I think companies all over the world, anywhere could benefit from a new Human Resources Coup…Learning Through Play! I know it doesn’t have a good acronym (I tried to come up with one that was cool, but I only got as close as CRAP and that is totally off point!) and doesn’t really roll of the tongue, but it’ll do.

I propose; no, challenge…if you will, each of you, the very next opportunity you have to learn something new, try to learn it in the way a child would, with wonderment, curiosity, etc and report back here how it went!
Keep smiling!