Single Parent

Single parents, I do not know how you do it; or did it!

After having Rebekah, Shelly told me she had an opportunity to attend some training at the Humana home office in Kentucky and participate in some conferences around the country. Having taken a couple of months off for maternity leave I told her she should "jump in feet first" and do as much as she can to enjoy her fairly new job. She took my words to heart and has hardly been home the last couple of months. Currently she is in Boston attending a conference, she will be home Sunday for a few hours before leaving again for San Diego.

Last month she was at a week long seminar in Kentucky when the kids all got the flu. I was holding newborn Rebekah in one arm standing over some towels so she could throw up on them and holding a crying Rachel in the other. Liam wanted to sleep in Emma's new bunk bed (top bunk of course) and ended up throwing all over her and her bed. He changed his clothes and went out to the living room to watch TV without waking me up, what a great guy, although Emma got sick from sleeping in his puke all night. It was a very draining week for me, and Shelly who was worried about us, jumped on a flight and came home early.

With all that said let me go back to my original statement, "Single parents I do not know how you do it!" I have a new respect for you all, especially my mom. She always said that there is a special place in heaven for the mothers of boys! Boy is she right. I don't know how she did it (and I only have 1 boy) all the while working and going to school to become a nurse. I cannot remember my mother getting angry at us, although she says whenever she tried to break up a fight or argument we would unite against her, so there was not a lot of discipline. She also still managed to take us to church every Sunday without killing us during services. The three of us turned out to be pretty great guys without a lot of animosity towards our parents for their parental mistakes.

When Shelly is home there is a little (very little) piece of the evening after she comes home where I can catch my breath and then the two of us take care of the family and house together. I am not the greatest homemaker, although I guess I do have that label, but I try and allow Shelly the time she needs after a hard days work to unwind without the children driving her crazy. With her gone and without that small amount of time to catch my breath and without her assistance in the evening, I find I get frustrated easy, the house doesn't get clean, I feel upset that I do not have any time for myself, and then I feel like a lousy parent. Being a school teacher and having parent-teacher conferences I have seen my share of bad parents. I've had strippers and prostitute parents, and been told I cannot send home troublemakers because they will be around violence and gang banger family members. I know I am not a bad parent, in fact I have been told many times how great I am with kids. I know my kids love me, but there is always the worry that will this split second decision be the one that haunts my kid forever.

Single parents: I respect you!

My wife: please don't ever leave me (at least for more than a week at a time)!

No White Guilt Here

So, recently a liberal family member tried to reeducate me through email in regards to the genesis of racism in our country. It was only a couple sentences but laughable, and I quickly deleted it to avoid familial confrontation and general frustration with an extremely confused portion of our county – the left. The damage was done and I have been rolling those confusing and angry sentences around in my head all day. I would like to set the record straight for all my friends and family: I have never killed an American Indian in my life! Believe it or not, I never have. In fact, when we built our house on land that we bought I didn’t even have to slaughter a single American Indian in order to begin construction! I have never called a black person a derogatory term in anger or frustration, although I have called lots of Mexicans bad names but I’m from San Diego so it’s OK. I have also never razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, so why is it that I am called a racist. Even with a black president I am called a racist for vehemently disagreeing with his policies, procedures, and just about everything he’s done to date. Napolitano and the Obama administration have already labeled me a “terrorist” because I am a right-wing extremist who believes we should close the borders and marriage is between a man and a woman, so I have nothing to lose. Why am I labeled a racist? The answer is simple: I am white. I was born white! Damn my parents for being white and mating together. I know I should feel some of that liberal white guilt, but I don’t. I am proud to be white. I am proud to be a born and bred native American. Liberals have grown so good at playing the race card to advance their own agendas, gain more power and use it as a shield to hide behind their own white guilt. The problem is that at one point in time it was a good tactic, no one wants to be a racist so they will capitulate to avoid embarrassment; nowadays if you play the card you just look stupid. Racism in America is practically dead. Travel oversees and see what true racism looks like. It will disgust you and make you realize how funny “racism” in America truly is. I befriended several Afrikaners when I was on my mission in Germany. These people were crammed into abandoned schools called ‘heims’ where they would pack 40-50 African men in one school room. These people had fled for their lives from their county and were LEGALLY in Germany. They were struggling to earn anything with the lowest jobs imaginable, even when the German people publicly put them down and treated them like inferior people, they would share their meals with us. The Germans would also have ‘Ausländer Raus!’ (foreigners out) days where they would protest foreigners (mainly Turks) in their country by closing their shops and putting AUSLANDER RAUS signs on their doors. Look at racism around the world and then applaud the progress that our own country has achieved in so little time. I could go on forever, but let me just end with this, because I disagree with you, because I am a white male, I am not a racist. I will not apologize to every American Indian I encounter because some of their ancestors might have been wronged by a white person, just like I would not expect an apology from the ancestors who made white slaves build the pyramids. To all 3 or 4 of my left leaning family members who might be going, “this guy is a jerk!” - I love you, you are dead wrong on your politics, but I still love you, just chill out on the race card, its time has passed.