Infinity and Back

Infinity and Back is the answer...2 the question: how long can Little Man listen 2 a child say, "i love you, Daddy".

4 tiny words carry with-in them a force 2 change the World. Little Man is transformed into a capped crusader 4 all those things that R given 'lip service' everywhere, all the time.

Justice 4 All...Equal Opportunity: 2 achieve greatness ... 2 realize dreams...2 attempt...2 fail...2 B heard...2 B transformed...2 live without fear...2 trust

Especially, 4 children: 2 LIVE WITHOUT KNOWING: HUNGER, WAR, ABUSE, FEAR, DEATH

"i love you, Daddy" transcends language, time and space, relationship and gender.

It speaks of a promise, unspoken.

Of a boundless faith...of peace, of love, of pardon, of hope, of light...

of JOY

Little Man heard it LOUD, CLEAR & with-out conditions from too many to mention all...however i gladly and thankfully and bless fully, acknowledge: malina, p. francois, cole, sara, paulz, ericak, lynnz, tomlonewolf, phyls, joez, and all thoz w/out names.

PARENTING IN AMERICA---INCREASING THE ODDS

Worry over what is wrong with our kids is becoming a serious concern which cuts across ethnicities, age and income cohorts, and rural, suburban and urban classifications.

Be it, teenage, unwed mothers, heroin over-dose cases in affluent enclaves, random acts of unmanageably atrophies, or sky-rocketing rates of young adult suicides, the signs of the total collapse of family and community are everywhere.

Certainly, there is no shortage of remedies in the market place.

Take pills, eat healthy, exercise, live in a tree house, love your parents/hate your parents, go away to boarding school, be home schooled or get over it.

Child development experts, from Dr. Spock, to Dr. Brazelton and, now, Dr Phil have been more than ready to say what a normal child could be, if only, they were “appropriately” nurtured.


Even with our own children to learn from, our knowledge and perception of children has come, in no small part large part, from, surprise, TV!

A long line of “kid” shows have addressed themselves primarily to children. Beginning in the early fifties and with the growing access to in-home TV, popular kid shows featured “real” children. A fore-runner of the current rash of “Reality TV” shows, these shows would typically have a re-occurring group of kids chosen to represent real kids.

From Art Linkletter‘s kids who say the funniest (darnest? things“, to Mr. Rogers’ serene neighborhood; to learning with Big Bird & Barney; to having fun with Bill Cosby’s’ hey, hey, hey.

The kids on these shows were chosen for the talent and were given clever lines to deliver. Thus, our idealized children were bright, happy, knowing, loving and virtuous. As audiences grew up, new real families appeared: Ed McMurray in Father knows Best; Leave it to Beaver; The Donna Reed Show ; Ozzie & Harriet Nelson with sons, David and Ricky.

Ozzie Nelson took his show to the logical next step.

They acted like themselves would if they could.

(Ricky Nelson…good looking; rock star; women, both young and not so young, love him. This is the real Ricky, not the TV one. Marries the beautiful daughter of a foot-ball legend. Had three lovely children.)

“Heck, in my neighborhood, I was Ricky Nelson.”

But what about the real reality.

If the children you know are bright, happy, knowing, loving and virtuous, you bear witness to a miracle that should be treated as such. If you don’t know many kids that exhibit most of these positive traits, shouldn’t you wonder why.

A disconnect occurs when we try to reconcile this “model” child with all the real children that we know. A source of the disconnect is how few of our children are “appropriately” nurtured. While the details of “appropriately” would undoubtedly be debated, I believe a consensus exists for the broad elements of such nurturing.

The elements would include: safety, consistency, respect, affection, positive reinforcement, caring inter-action, play, talking, reading and holding. The providers of this nurturing can
be anyone who can “genuinely” offer such nurturing. The sad and troubling reality is that there are vastly fewer providers of “genuine” nurturing then there are children to be nurtured.

Little mention will be made of the obvious outcomes resulting so often from the absence of nurturing parenting. Generations of single moms (both young and those not so young), school drop-outs, bullies, and, in too many instances, non-feeling, loners that do monstrous deeds.

Far too few in our society ever develop an understanding of their own self -worth and therefore are unable to imbue others with it. Lacking a sense of something (anything) having value, it easily is concluded that all things (including lives) are value-less. And value-less things need no consideration, or compassion or other human emotion.

My focus, instead is on this question: “if parenting (or it’s absence) is so powerful in determining who we become, why do we leave it to chance.?”

One would expect that we would forget about everything else and concentrate our full attention on improving the chances (e.g. “increasing the odds”) that we end up with individuals who understand and respect the notion that all of our individual actions, good/and bad ones, come with some consequence attached like a shadow.

And, alas, that the individual gives a damn about that consequence.