Your Duty as a Parent

Dear Friend,

Great parenting doesn't require sacrifice, it requires you to have fun.

Most parents start off their parenting life in sacrificial mode. Parenting is a duty that you owe to your children. And duty requires sacrifice, right?

Let's face it. If you are used to hanging out with your friends every Friday night, and now you have a new, hungry bundle of joy, things are going to change. And that change feels a whole lot like sacrifice.

Fun time is over. That birthing was expensive! Even with insurance. Maybe there were complications that really ran the bill up. Then there's baby food, diapers, and all that paraphernalia and stuff that, apparently, baby's just gotta have. And, of course, you need a minivan to haul it all around.

If you are the primary income producer of the family (or if you're a single parent) then you know that you have to get to work to pay those bills. And a great deal of your discretionary time and money just vaporized. If you are the primary caregiver, your considerable and highly educated skills will now be focused on how to most efficiently change a very smelly diaper without getting any on ya.

This is all true. So what's the deal with the first sentence in this post? Is it just a bunch of nice sounding bullcrap?

What you are experiencing as a new parent is the need to adjust your time to deal with the new realities of parenting. And yes, babies do need special attention and equipment that can put a stop to what had been a perfectly comfortable lifestyle.

What the first sentence is talking about is being a great parent. And the false idea that you must sacrifice the pursuit of your own happiness in order to be that great parent. All these years you thought that you would grow up and pursue your dreams. Now you believe that your new role as a parent means that you must sacrifice those lifelong dreams to that role. That duty.

In fact, the opposite is true. To be a great parent you must begin, if you have not already, the serious pursuit of your true life's purpose.

We are raised in our culture to implicitly believe that work is not fun. And that if work is fun, then you are not really working. My mom used to say that medicine doesn't work unless it hurts. Of course we know now that her statemeent was a bunch of malarky. Well, the idea that work is necessarily not fun is totally out of date as well. In fact, if you are not having fun at work, you are probably not producing your best results. Remember that sentence.

The same cultural misconception is often applied to parenting. And we do this without thinking. Being a great parent is work, right? At least that's what our parents said (or strongly implied). And they were right of course. And being human, and therefore prone to laziness, we prefer to avoid work. We think that happiness requires a lack of work. Well, that may well be true if you are working for someone else. And throughout history, the vast majority of people did just that.

This time you won't be working for someone else. Not your boss. Or your partner. Or your kids. At least not directly. No, this time you are going to work for you. And the "project" that you will be working on is the Project of You.

This is not self indulgence, or a justification for lazy parenting. This is a necessary and often lacking component to being the best parent that you can possibly be. You see, if you are not having fun while parenting, you are probably not producing your best results as a parent.

Chances are, hanging out with your friends on Friday night had little to do with the pursuit of your life's true purpose. It's just what you did to casually fill up your ample free time. It's the kind of thing that you'd been doing since you were a kid. And now that time is filled with other things.

Having children creates new responsibilities that never existed before. What it also does is force you to get serious about living your life. Being a parent is not the time to stop focusing on your personal happiness. It's the exact opposite. It's the time to start focusing on you.

Most people drift through life until this moment. I mean, there may have been times, like a Bar or CPA exam, or some athletic challenge, or boot camp, when circumstances forced you to stop goofing off and really dig down deep inside to find the root of your personal drive and energy. But once that challenge was over, you slid back into your comfortable clothes and chilled. Old habits took over.

Am I saying that having kids is like boot camp? It can feel that way at times, but no. It's not even close. Unless you have a particularly difficult child or one with very special needs, its gets much easier over time. And your confidence in your parenting abilities improves as well. You learn to parent and chill at the same time.

What I am saying is that being a parent forces you to start living your true life's purpose. It forces you to grow up. And to get serious about being happy. And that's a good thing, because being a perpetual teenager at age 35 gets old, especially for your partner. True happiness comes from knowing yourself, and then living out your life's true purpose. Achieving these goals will require that you hunker down and focus a bit. But not on your new kid.

You'll have to do this eventually. Guys, do you want to find yourself at mid-life with a new Porsche, a new trophy second (or third) wife, and a big empty pit where your heart ought to be? (Well, maybe the first two ;-)) Ladies, do you want to find yourself at mid-life alone, unkempt, and unloved (mostly by you)?

These situations happen all too often. Why? Well, one reason is that these people bought into the lie that they had to sacrifice as parents in order to do their duty to their children. What they have really done is sold themselves into slavery to their kids, who often grow up spoiled, overly dependent on mom and dad, and unhappy. And mom and dad are burned out and worn out. And unhappy too. Generally speaking, today's parents aren't lazy. They're misdirected.

The sooner that you get started on the most important project of your life, the Project of You, the sooner you are going to love your life. And love yourself. And be the best possible parent that you can be. If you thought childhood was fun, you ain't seen nothin' yet. If you fear that your best years are behind you, you are quite mistaken. Being a fulfilled adult is much more fun than being a pampered kid without true direction in life.

To be a great parent requires that you focus on, and not sacrifice, your life's true purpose. It also means that you don't have to pretend that your life's purpose just changed to being a full-time servant to your kids instead of whatever else you thought it was before.

Being a great parent means modeling behavior that your kids can emulate - either now, or when they are older. Children are a lot like chimps. They copy what they see. And hear. It's a big part of how they learn. If you beat your spouse, there's a very good chance that your kids will grow up and do the same. If you live the life of your dreams, your kids will grow up and do that as well.

Be a model and a mentor to your kids, not a boss and an instructor. Your kids are not an engineering project. You can't plan, and then build them. They are living things. They know how to grow. What they need, as all living things do, is a safe, healthy environment, and a great example. Be your child's example of how to live a great life. And be a mirror for them to know how well they are living theirs.

So, if you define great parenting as raising healthy children who grow up as happy, well adjusted adults, then you need to act like a happy, well adjusted adult. And the easiest way to do that is to be one.

The day you first become a parent is, for many people, your first day of living a better, more fun-filled life. So forget the sacrifice myth. You've got a fantastic life to live. And children to share it with.

Give living the life of your dreams a try. I think that you'll like it. And it's your duty as a parent to live it to the fullest!

Talk to you again soon.

Hugh

The Family Cruising Lifestyle

Dear Friend,

Ever wanted to sail away and leave the world behind? Think that you have to wait until the kids are grown and you've built up a stockpile of money? Think again.

Families who raise children aboard swear that there is no better way to do it. Many of these families educate their kids on-the-go. These "boat schooled" children learn to be responsible, curious, independent, and are not addicted to television. They also have extra advantages that come from the rich experiences that living aboard can bring.

Home schooled kids in general score higher than average on college entrance examinations, and these days college entrance officials actually tend to favor these children in admissions because they are considered self-motivated, confident, and more likely to succeed than children from traditional backgrounds.

Cruising families (and mobile families generally) can utilize a wide selection of home schooling materials. Some prefer the traditional Calvert School program (former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is a graduate). See Calvert School at http://www.calvertschool.org. Others use less traditional approaches. All seem to work out equally well. The main thing seems to be what works best for you and your children in your unique circumstances.

Then there are "liveaboard" families who don't homeschool. In fact, some of these families rarely leave the marina. Folks like the Jost family of Boston, featured in an article in the May, 2009, issue of Motorboating magazine. Both Jost kids, who are teens, attend a public school near the marina. Their boat, a 49-foot Gulfstar motoryacht, is their floating home year-round. To the Josts, moving on board meant breaking out of a "land-locked rut, clear[ing] out the clutter and liv[ing] life in a completely new way."

The Josts felt that selling their house and 80% of their belongings was therapeutic. They simplified their life and learned to live with less "stuff." Ms. Jost says that, "instead of collecting material things, we now collect experiences."

Living aboard seems to bring families closer together. One family of four cruised to Iceland and wintered there. They enrolled their children in an Icelandic school, mainly to expose them to a new language and culture. They spent the next winter in Norway. These folks didn't mind the cold, and you might prefer a summer visit to such high latitudes, but nothing will replace cruising in silence among icebergs in your floating home, with your family by your side.

These are just a few examples of the kind of lives that other folks are living when they dare to think outside of the family lifestyle "box."

What kind of life could you be living right now?

All the best,

Hugh

Amy's American Adventure

Dear Friend,

Amy was an adventurous blond, blue-eyed tomboy living an ordinary suburban life when her parents announced that the family would be purchasing an RV motorhome and traveling the United States for one year on a journey of discovery.

She was a bit sad to leave her friends behind, and she wasn't sure what she would do to keep herself busy for an entire year.

Then her parents got the idea that it might be a cool to get the signature of every State Governor in the United States when they visited that Governor's state. Amy wasn't sure how they might go about doing that but the idea struck home. From that moment on, Amy was polarized by the challenge of meeting every State Governor and obtaining their signature.

Her parents also got caught up in the idea and wrote letters to each Governor's office to arrange the meetings before they began their journey. Some Governor's offices responded coolly or with little interest. Others seized the moment and got excited by the prospect.

When Amy and her family were done, she had, one way or another, succeeded in obtaining the signature of every U.S. State Governor and the signature of Bob Dole, who was then running for President of the United States. She had also drawn the attention on her journey of the national press, including CNN, C-SPAN, and MTV, who were fascinated and excited by what she and her family were doing.

When she returned, Amy turned a daily journal that she had kept into a book that was published through Ironwood Press, titled, My American Adventure. The book's forward was written by Governor John Engler of her home state of Michigan.

Amy missed out on a lot during the year that she was gone. There were activities that she missed, classes at the local public school that she didn't attend, a whole lot of TV time, and much more.

Instead of those activities that Amy missed, she participated in something that at first seemed impossible, but that instead changed her life forever.

After personally interviewing government officials from across the U.S. for a year, do you think that Amy will be shy as an adult to make her views known to her local representatives? After setting forth on what must have seemed to her a surreal and impossible task, experiencing that task morph into a personal mission, and then succeeding in that mission, do you think that Amy will shy away from difficult tasks in the future, or seize them with the open arms that are required to overcome life's most difficult tasks?

I was struck by Amy's story, as I'm sure you are too. I want my children to have the opportunity to discover the world and what they are truly capable of before they set out on their own as adults. I also knew that my children would never get such an opportunity if my family continued on the conventional life path that my wife and I had them on up until that point.

But how did I make the change? How does one go about transitioning an entire family's lifestyle, source of income and money management style, educational arrangements, living quarters and conditions, daily routine, attitudes about how much stuff that we needed to live comfortably, and all the rest? It sounds impossible, I know. And it takes balls to take it on. But we did take it on. And so can you.

I slowly convinced my spouce of the benefits of these changes through simple examples like I am presenting to you now. She went from a firm traditionalist to a very open minded adventurer. You'd be surprised how people's views can change when faced with facts that cannot be denied.

You also may not need to make so many changes to your lifestyle. It all depends on what it is you'd really like to do with your family before they are grown and gone.

The hardest part of all of this is waking up from the haze of everyday living. It seems hard to seriously reconsider the life that you are leading, and the life model that you are holding forth in front of your children. Yet you must reconsider, because this is the life model that your children will likely follow you in or, possibly, rebel against.

If you absolutely love your life just as it is, and you are convinced that your family's lifestyle sets an excellent example for your children, then you don't need to follow this blog. But I am thrilled that you do! In fact, I'd love you to leave me a reply note at the end of this post because you have something to teach others that they need to know.

If you are not the person that I just described then you need to take this post as your personal wake up call. I am talking directly to you. Right now. Think about the life you are leading. The clock is ticking on your children's future. And on yours. What are you going to do about it?

If you do anything, do it today. Do something now. Even if it is just to make up your mind to do something. Put your life on it's natural path, the one less followed. You might have to give it a sudden jerk to pop your life out of the momentum of the old rutted path that everyone else seems to be following, but you can do it! I can't wait to hear about your coming adventures!

Talk to you soon,

Hugh

Let's Rescue A Generation

Dear Friend,

My mom had a dream when she was young. She wanted to be a surgical nurse.

Mom grew up as a middling child in a large family. Her family lived in the boonies, and had little money. Her dad was a boat captain, and was away all week. All of the children worked hard to take care of what little they had.

Mom's oldest brother was the star of the family. Highly intelligent, he left home after high school and put himself through Duke University, eventually becoming a respected physician. Mom admired her big brother. In those days, women didn't dare dream of being an actual doctor. However, mom dreamed of the next best thing, which to her meant being a surgical nurse.

She imagined being in the operating room, messy as it was, helping to save lives and to really make a difference. When she was old enough, she would visit her brother and helped him in his practice. She did a great job, apparently, because her brother, who was a tough judge of character, often invited her back.

As mom grew older, of course she started dating. For many young girls in her town, marriage was the ultimate goal. Mom's home wasn't really a very happy place, and, like most of her siblings, she couldn't wait to get away. However, her dream wasn't marriage - it was college.

She often imagined marrying a handsome doctor, and helping him in his practice. Together they would save lives.

But, as is often the case, things don't always go as planned. My mom dated, and she met my dad. He was persistent, and they fell in love. Before she knew it, my oldest sister came, and she found herself married, alone, in an apartment distant from her familiar surroundings. My dad worked four jobs just to keep them above water. Her dreams of surgery simply faded away in the face of a powerful reality. And she had a nervous breakdown.

From what I hear from others, my mom's story isn't really all that different from the story of many others from her generation. She was raising children in the post World War II baby boom. Her world was moving fast. My dad, a traditional guy, didn't approve of my mom going off to college. I mean, who would raise their children? Where would the money come from? It just wasn't a woman's place, and besides, childish dreams had little place in the real world.

Eventually, my mom accepted her fate, as it was. She never seriously pursued her dream, though she spoke of it often to us children. I suspect that she resented my dad, and perhaps she secretly resented us kids as well, for preventing her from pursuing her dream. Though she never admitted to it.

My mom's story is one I never want to hear again. I don't mean from her. I mean from me. Or from you. Particularly in this age of possibilities, I believe that no one has an excuse to give up on their dreams. Particularly not if the excuse is that they now have a family to support and raise.

Certainly, changes in our life's situation require that we adjust our approach to a dream. A now paraplegic has to adjust his or her dream of becoming an athlete. Yet I'll bet there is some way to achieve the core of whatever drove that dream.

The handicapped person can face real challenges. And they overcome them everyday. If your challenge is that you have a job, and a family, and bills, and a cranky boss, and a dull life, well, whose fault is that? And what are you going to do about it?

What about your true dreams? Those things that defined you before your life got dull? Do you plan that they be victims of your current life's circumstances as well?

Join us at Families Without Limits. Post, as a response to this post, your story. We all need to be inspired by your story. Or the story of one of your loved ones as I just told. It may be an ordinary story. I don't care. Most stories are ordinary. If they are stories of the tragic failure to live a life to its fullest, we need to hear about it. If it's the story of how someone refused to sacrifice their life on the funeral pyre of conventional life expectations, we definitely want to hear about it.

Together, we can save an entire generation from the nervous breakdown that accompanies the loss of our life's true purpose. We can prevent a tragedy of generational proportions.

Will you join me? It all starts with your post. Please, tell us about it...

All the best,

Hugh

Portable Education

Dear Friend,

When people with families begin to dream about living a creative family lifestyle, one crafted around the dreams and goals of family members instead of by their circumstances, there always seem to be the same perceived barriers that stand in the way. At least when those dreams require the family to become more mobile and flexible in the way they live day-to-day.

Two of the greatest perceived barriers to breaking with a conventional fixed family lifestyle are careers and schooling for the children. Most jobs are tied to a physical office, and traditional schools are physical places. If you need to be mobile, this is a problem.

There is a great deal of information on the Internet about portable careers and work that only requires a laptop and an Internet connection. I'm not sure how much I can add to that here. There is also plenty of information available regarding alternative educational opportunities. However, there seems to be little information about how families can achieve a quality education for their children without being tied to any one physical place, and without the parents having to trade their previous career in an office for a new career as their kid's new school teacher.

I will be presenting to you as many educational options for mobile families as I can discover, along with references to where you can obtain more information. If you are part of a family that has mastered the "portable school" or its equivalent, I'd would really love to hear from you.

We are all here to help each other to remove barriers to our dreams. At least that's why I'm here. I hope that you feel the same way.

More on this subject in future posts.

All the best,

Hugh

Online Character

Dear Friend,

Generally speaking, I'm a pretty shy guy. I prefer not to spout out my opinions to the world, at least in person. It is true, I think, that the Internet as a medium can help anyone to feel more at ease communicating their honest thoughts. It has certainly helped me, and I am the better for it.

The Internet can also be used to cause harm in relative anonymity. Perhaps our true character comes to the fore when we are free to act behind the secrecy of the avatar, without obvious immediate consequences to our actions. I keep that in mind whenever I interface with anyone online. I try to remember that's a real person on the other end of that avatar.

I know that anytime I interact online it's a real opportunity to discover something and someone new. That's exciting! But those interactions are also opportunities to prove what an ass I am. I hope I don't disappoint myself or you.

All the best, and in the States, have a terrific Memorial Day!

Hugh

Your Creative Family Lifestyle

Dear Friend,

What is a "creative family lifestyle," and why would anyone want to live one?

To me, living a creative family lifestyle really means living a life intentionally crafted by me. A life crafted around the pursuit of my most closely held dreams and desires. A life spent in pursuit of my true life's purpoise.

And when I am a part of a family, as I am, it means working and living together, discovering, nurturing and sharing our unique dreams with each other, and doing our darndest to help each other live out those dreams while staying together as a suportive and loving family unit.

Certainly, some family members will utimately have dreams and desires that necessarily take them physically away from the family unit, and that's fine. In fact, to prevent such a separation from occurring in the name of preserving family cohesion is, in effect, emotional kidnapping.

Nevertheless, a reasonably functional family will want to do things on occasion as a unit, and to enjoy each other's company. This form of family function is (or at least should be in my opinion) a life-long pursuit. Long after you are grown and have left the nest, you should ideally feel the desire to share that old filial closeness, both with your birth family and with your new, nuclear family, plus extended family and friends.

Unfortunately, many birth families break up almost entirely once the children leave the nest. Today's workplace often takes people to far corners of the globe. Yet with modern communications and (sometimes) reasonably-priced travel, a family that wants to be together, can be together.

Regardless of the value that solid family ties can bring to your life, if your birth family tends to be less functional, or even emotionally destructive, then you probably should stay away from them. This is a hard decision to make. And it is generally riddled with guilty feelings. Those guilty feelings are often encouraged by certain family members who think that they can manipulate you back "into the fold." But you are not a sheep, you are a vibrant human being. And you have a right to be happy. You don't have an obligation to put up with their s**t.

If you do not feel the desire to associate with your family relations, ask yourself, "Why?" Are they truly destructive in your presence? Do they actively try to undermine your happiness? Are they co-dependent and looking for you to carry them emotionally? If so, then your decision to distance yourself from them is likely a sound one.

On the other hand, are you harboring old grudges or anger? Most of us do, to a degree. We will never forgive our parents for not living up to the perfect images that we unrealistically held of them in our infancy. Do you still carry anger for an old wrong? Carrying this old anger or other negative emotion around with you means that you are the cause of the discomfort that you feel when the subject of your family comes up. Your instinctive reaction to that memory is interfering with your happiness. And it is probably interfering with your ability to be the top-notch parent that you want to be for your children. You may actually be passing some of that old, negative energy, on to your children.

If you determine, after honest contemplation, and possibly with the help of a good counselor, that some part of your family relations is destructive to your happiness, then you can take action to separate from them, without guilt. If you find that a major part of your discomfort with family derives from old emotional baggage, then you need to learn to move beyond those old emotions. Try meditation. Counseling can also be a great way to face and then permanently dismiss these ghosts of the past.

The point of this discussion is that you cannot pursue a creative family lifestyle if you don't really enjoy being with your family. Get to the root of what interferes with you developing a full connection with your spouse and kids. Intentionally crafting your personal life, while respecting and allowing other family members to do the same, and while maintaining a close filial connection, is the definition of a fully functioning composite family life.

A composite family life means a life blended in such a way that the combination is stronger than the sum of its parts. It's synergy. It is not a compromise lifestyle. If you feel that being with your family requires you to compromise on the honest pursuit of your personal dreams, then you will resent your family for "forcing" you to accept that compromise. And sitting in quiet resentment among your family is no way to live. Such an emotional state cannot help but bleed over into your actions and attitudes as a parent, for example. And resentment tends to grow over time if not addressed.

You cannot live in bliss if you hold onto negative emotions. To live within a family without limits, you must first discover the true value of your family as a spice that can enrich your life experience instead of spoiling your happiness.

If the quality of your family life experience is not great then now is the time to get to the bottom of your issues. Heading off to Tahiti will not bring you instant happiness. It will not solve old family problems or attitudes. A line from a movie once said, "This is an island, Bud. If you didn't bring it here, you won't find it here." The character was referring to the search for bliss and happiness in exotic locales.

So, the first step to living a family life without limits, to creating the family lifestyle of your dreams, is to clean up old business. You may have to bulldoze the old place before you start building the new one.

Talk to you soon,

Hugh