Archive for the ‘values’ Category

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Forget Big Brother, what about MOM and DAD!


2010
03.15

Posted in Life, Parenting, family, relationship, values | 2 Comments »

Me and the wife picked up netbooks a few weeks ago, mind you I was supposed to be the only one getting one, but the wife couldn’t resist the urge.  Since we’ve gotten the netbooks the pc hasn’t gotten nearly as much use as it did prior to having the netbooks, a fact that our son has clearly pointed out to us.  He even hinted at moving the pc from the living room to his room, according to him he “doesn’t have to bother us anymore”.   We are also in the process of upgrading our phones to which again, lil man says now he can have his “own blackberry”.   Yeah he’s seven which makes these conversations surreal, but a realize its no longer 1982 and its not me who is 7 years old.

Earlier today while researching information on sprints next new blackberry on my number spot for blackberry info crackberry.com in the forums, I read a question posted by a parent in regards to their 15 year old who wanted a phone, and what the parent was researching for, is a program which he/she could use to in essence spy on what ever the daughter did on the phone. The thread was actually started early March 15th early morning, and was already 6 pages long by 4:30pm on the same day. That in itself is crazy, the tread turned into a right versus wrong as far as how far can a parent go, and how much privacy is a child really entitled to.  Myself with a lil man who seems to understand more about technology than I thought he was capable of understanding decided to read through most of the thread.  Many chimed in on the fact that if a parent is looking to such measures that the relationship between parent and child has other issues, while others have gone with the my house my rules approach, and feel the parent is in the right as far as spying or what they claim is “good” parenting!

Me personally do not agree with going to such extent to know what a child of mine is doing!   Say what you will, just because I’m the dad it does not give me the right to spy to such extreme or to be such a paranoid parent.   I think to give my son a phone with spy ware, especially with out him knowing is a betrayal on our relationship and everything I feel I’ve taught him.   The argument was brought up that life has changed and today things are worst than say twenty years ago. That to me is total crap, yes times have changed, but like everything we made the most out of the technology that was available then.   I grew up with beepers in high school and I made sure as soon as the skytel pagers came out I copped one (for those who don’t know the skytel pagers came with a 800 number and actual text message versus the basic call back number).  Do you think I didn’t find myself in trouble because it was easy to make plans and get together at moments notice, hell yeah!   Do you think if I founnd out my moms was spying, I wouldn’t have found other ways of keeping in touch, damn real! If my mother would have went to extremes of access to my messages, we would have had serious personal issues.   Only thing was my mom made it clear as I got older, “get in trouble with the law don’t bother calling me in the middle of the night, I’ll hang up you”(for the record, I have never gotten in trouble with the law).   My moms showed us by example, we could never point a finger and say but you do it.   When I was legally old enough to drink I’d tell her “I’m going drinking with some buddies,” and did she like it, nope not one damn bit.  The fact that she knew I went out drinking ensured that I walked through that door and said “mammita I’m home and good night”.   That wasn’t the end either cause no matter what, I had to get up for work in the morning.  I knew the moment I hung out and she had to wake me up for work, she’d be mad as hell and would have more fuel to beef with me about hanging out!  Yeah you might say that the age of the girl is different from my personal story but the rules apply. You can expect to be respected, by anyone who you yourself do not respect.

See my moms loved me and as any parent always wanted what was best for me, and though me and moms argued, and rarely saw eye to eye on anything.  One thing I love about her was that see let me be. Whether it was because when I came around she’d been worn down by five older siblings and  she was know doing it on her own with out her life partner who past away or just maybe she felt I would do what I had to do, it didn’t hurt to show her that I was responsible for myself.   My mom was as nosy as any parent is and honestly I expected that.  I always understood on some level that was love at work.   She never made an effort to go through my personal belongings even when they were out for her to see.  Why did I leave out to begin with TRUST.  If I can’t trust my mother then who.

My plan has always been to be a father to my sons first, a friend second.   I let him know now as a seven year old, yeah he’s my best buddy, but I am ALWAYS his dad first!  When he tells me stories he rather not share  it becomes our story.  I build with him every chance I can, I tell him I love him not matter what, and when he does something wrong I don’t lose it, rather try and make him understand.   From what I’ve gathered in these past seven years as a father is, that my son knows more than I think and, what he doesn’t he wants ME to show him.

Am I afraid of the peer-pressure my SLMB will face in this day and age, hell fucking yeah.  Will I let that fear guide me, hell no. Its that fear that drives, not just me, but my wife to ensure we give him the proper tools to make the right decisions.  My mother always said “you can take a horse to the rivers edge but you can’t make him drink”.  My son is not a horse but I will prepare him for life as best as possible. There’s many aspects to this subject and at no point do I claim to be right or know what’s best answer for this situations, but I do know life is about trials and tribulations.

  • Parents seriously how do you feel?
  • To those with young ones, would you add spy ware to your child’s cell phone with out their knowledge?
  • How bout those with children who already have cell phones how do you monitor your child’s activity?
  • Is it truly okay for a parent to monitor their child without telling them, or would you at least tell them?
  • Does anyone have first hand experience good or bad?

One thing to think about for those who say times have changed, 50-60 years ago it wasn’t unheard of kids dropping out of high school around 10th and 11th grade to find work and help the family!  So yeah times have changed kids are kids longer!   Leave me your thoughts and comments share your stories also!

One last thing on the thread someone responded by saying the daughter should just have her boyfriend buy her a cell phone!

  • How do feeling about that?
  • Would you really encourage you child to have a boyfriend or girlfriend by them a cell phone?
  • Isn’t that the wrong message to give a child?
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    Adoption: Unseen ties to the past.


    2010
    03.05

    Posted in Adoption, Life, family, values | 5 Comments »

    “I am the sum of all that has come to past before now”

    I’ve often had people ask me if I’d change anything about my life and  my response is always the same, “NOPE”.  I know I haven’t made the best choices nor have been happy with the consequences of my decisions, but honestly my life hasn’t been hard.  If anything I’ve lived my life through my choices and no one else’s when it mattered most, when I became an adult.  To me Life is a series of random events and how we ourselves respond to these events, which in turn lead to more random events.  Around the end of 2008 my little brother gave me a call and told me that he had found our biological grandfather, and an older cousin.  Our biological grandfather lives in upstate New York while our blood cousin lives in the Bronx, by Tremont off the D line* which I find rather funny.  I remember he had called me early in the evening and gave me the phone numbers to call, which I quickly wrote it down, but kind of put it off to the side once our call was done.  See while I’ve always know I was adopted and wanted to know about my life prior to adoption, I’ve had more of a laid back approach to actually finding our biological mother.  So thanks to my little brother this story in the series is all because of him, Love you Bro!

    I had dinner with my family and off course told my wife that my brother had found blood relatives, but it really wasn’t a discussion to be had.  While my wife is my biggest pain in the ass, also my biggest supporter, this was one subject she would not force.  Later in the evening I decided to call my grandfather.  I didn’t know what to really expect when calling, it didn’t help the Abuelo didn’t speak much english, and I on the other hand while I’m able to speak spanish, when it comes to dealing with emotions, the words in spanish tend to get lost with me.  My conversation with abuelo was short and according to him he only recalled seeing me a few times.  He was very happy to hear from me which I found very welcoming.  One thing though abuelo was expecting me to have news of Pilar (my biological mother), as it turns outs no one has heard from her since around the early 80′s.  After speaking with abuelo I called my cousin in the Bronx, and once again that feeling of welcoming was present.  I spoke with my cousin a bit longer than I had with abuelo, as she told me that she knew my mother and recalls seeing me with her.  I felt strangely happy to receive the welcoming I had received that evening, but still had one more call to make, my tio.  While it was already getting late I had no excuse not to call since there was a two hour time difference so I couldn’t even say it was to late to call, plus my cousin said he was expecting my call.  I called my Uncle and his wife answered.  When I said my name the first thing she told me was that, they had my original birth certificate, I don’t know bout anyone else but that means a whole lot to me.  That’s like proof of my existence, not to say I didn’t exist prior to that but there’s nothing like original documentation.  The birth certificate I have is from 1980 a few years after I was born, so knowing that not only did there exist a birth certificate for me, but it was safeguarded.  I spoke to tio who told me that just the summer before they were in New York and tried to find me as they had done whenever they came to New York.  We spoke for a good forty-five minutes and before hanging up I was given two more phone numbers.  Both numbers were for other uncles, one which lives in Florida and the other in Puerto Rico.  Over the course of one night, and a few hours, my family had increased in size with a few phone calls.

    One of the first questions I received when I did my first post on adoption was whether I was Latino by @shiftC which I said yes.  Like knowing that I was always adopted, I always new I was Latino and Cuban to boot, my adoptive family are also Cuban as my biological mother, and my grandfather who also came from Cuba.  What I did find out was that I have part Chinese-Cuban blood flowing through these veins thanks to my grandmother.  As for my biological mother, well she seems to have disappeared sometime in the early 80′s since no one has really heard or seen her since.  It isn’t really a topic of discussion though I personally would like to know.  From what little information I’ve gotten was at one point she got caught up with drugs, also that she got married and moved to Connecticut and had  a daughter giving me a little half-sister around the age of twenty-five or so give or take a few years.

    The other day my uncles daughter from Puerto Rico hit me up on facebook requesting me to friend her and it really got me thinking.  She’s only like nineteen or twenty and was ecstatic to have found me, we also spoke on the phone and she had to put her boyfriend on the phone since she’s like me, except with English, when she gets emotional the words are hard to come by.  He told me how she almost cried looking through my facebook profile. This incident makes me look back and think about all the thoughts I had on adoption, I never thought that my family would double in size.  I have still yet to find my bio-mom, but in the process I’ve have found out that I have been living in my biological families thoughts for the past thirty years, while I’ve only thought about my bio-mom.  It goes to show you that going back to the beginning isn’t about one but those who you have touched directly and indirectly, as my cousin who I speak about wasn’t even  born until the 90′s, yet she knows not just about her Aunt (my bio-mom) but me as well.  Para Los Castillo’s gracias por no olvidalme.

    *the Bronx, by Tremont off the D line*- anyone true native New Yorker is well aware that when giving directions outside of landmarks its easier to just state what train runs through the are, also Tremont off the D train is where I spent a lot of time hanging out in the early to mid 90′s. Basically hanging out rigaround where I had blood relatives living.

    Leave me your thoughts, question, ideas, or even share your story with me, I’d be more than glad to post others stories!

    Also trying to find information about finding someone (biological mother), it’s been about 30 years and not one person in the family knows where she is.  Any information on where to begin is appreciated!  Don’t forget to share this post and look at the others have I written on adoption.

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    The answer is in the question


    2010
    02.26

    Posted in Education, Parenting, SLMB, family, values | 2 Comments »

    One of the first things as a parent I looked forward to was the moment diapers were no longer part of the shopping list.  I dreaded getting that call at work from the wife, to not forget to get a box of pampers, I swore she must have been using them for origami or something, cause I got that call like every other day.  While my son went up in pamper size I’d cheer and cry at the same time.  I cheered for the fact the the bigger the pamper size the closer we were to parting and saying good bye to pampers forever, it didn’t help that my lil man was a preemie  and size N fit him like an oversized trash bag when he came home.  After every size up I’d cry also, cause the box would get smaller yet the price remained the same, and I swear I was still buying boxes at the same rate.  Anyway soon enough the pamper stage was nothing but a memory (my lil man took about a week to potty train), the next stage which I heard so much about was just beginning, the verbal marathon.

    The big difference between the diaper runs and the verbal marathon was the pacing.  The diaper run was like speed racing, which started with a bang, the moment you arrive home with your new born giving you no time to do anything but react, the verbal marathon is quite the opposite starting slow and steady.  This slow and steady pace caught me off guard, I was enthralled and cheered my son on as he began with his first words, which by the way was da, I think the wife is still upset about that.  She feels that after walking around pregnant with him that she earned the rights to his first sound being ma, sorry bout that though, at least you got second place sweetie.  Like any proud parents we cheered him on unaware of what was to come.  Me and the wife kept cheering him on as the verbal marathon continued, thing is we eventually forgot about the marathon.  Our son caught a second wind as he went into the mid stretch of the verbal marathon.  This second wind was unlike the first stretch, where he was just feeling his way, with each and every new word as he mastered and understood them, nah the second stretch was him flexing his verbal mastery.  He was putting together short and simple sentences which was nice, but the sentences went from things such as what he wanted, like, and didn’t like to why.  I’m pretty sure any parent reading this, knows “WHY”, has a tendency to throw a wrench in any conversation, you have with your child.  Nothing worse than being in the middle of some task and telling you child to do something and they respond with why.  Don’t get me wrong, why is great since is show’s you that your child is thinking and trying to make sense of what is happening, but as a parent at times I don’t feel a need for a discussion and having my son just comply with direction would just make things easier, at least for me.  The questions still are raised by my son and we have taken a cheer leading approach to it.  Yes it can be VERY exhausting to cheer your child on during the second stretch of the verbal marathon stage but it’s worth it.  See my son is now seven years old and we continue to cheer him on, we have no idea when this verbal marathon will end or when he’ll go into the last stretch of just cruising to the finish line, at times the questions are fast and furious or just overwhelming we have no immediate response for him, such as when he asked “what is ejaculation?”.

    I’ve always been a cheer leader for my son in his verbal marathon not by choice, but more so by habit.  See I’ve never been one to follow the person in front of me just because they were in front.  I guess I got that from one of my sisters growing up, she would end our conversation if she asked me why and my answer was because.  To her it wasn’t about whether my answer was right or wrong but that I be able to explain it in my own words not a teachers words, or the article I may have just read.   She said if your response to something is because is means you truly don’t understand what your saying and might as well just read aloud where you got the information from.  Well that wasn’t exactly what she told me, but, that’s pretty much what I’ve gotten out of it.  So with that thought process every time my son ask a question I see it as his attempt to learn something he doesn’t fully understand.  Instead of giving him a simple answer I respond with a question of my own.  I’m proud to say I don’t often give him a direct answer, actually rarely.  This exchange between us is a learning experience for not only him but myself.  While giving a child or an adult for that matter a direct answer speeds up the exchange between the two, but nothing is learned in the process.  Often I see parents that don’t realize just what their own child knows or are capable of, because every time the child ask a question they rather give an appropriate yet direct response.

    Let me use my son as an example, he’s a pretty rational and also an abstract self  thinker in terms of how he goes about doing things.  How do I know this well because when I ask him a question and he gives me a response I ask him why, and how.  This always leads me into some of his abstract thoughts of why, it’s even surprises me since even before asking him why or how I tend to have my thoughts on how or why he got the response he did, but soon after asking him why I am face with a totally different view.  My son is very good in math, he’s in second grade and while his class is doing basic addition and subtraction of three digit numbers, he himself is working on multiplication (he came home and asked me to find a website to help teach him multiplication, I kid you not) and is fully aware of positive and negative number and knows where they go on a number line.  Every now and then I give him random verbal addition question, this particular question came during a commercial break.  I said  ”Hey SLMB, what’s 8+7= come on quick, quick?”  He surely answered quickly with 15.  Yeah he’s working on multiplication but it is always good to back and go through older concepts, sort of like a refresher.  So I asked him how did he know that?  I thought he would say cause he’s memorized adding and subtracting all the smaller number or something to that affect, but what he told me was that “I know 8+8 is 16 so instead of adding he subtracted 1 from 8 because it would give him seven, and he know 8+8=16 so 8+7 would be 15. While my sons response to the question was right I probed him to understand why and how, and it proved that he is not depending on what he has memorized but finding his way to simplify problem for him to solve it, ensuring me that he’s not just giving me a preprogrammed response from memorizing.  This also helps when I ask him other questions, because I can honestly have an idea of how he may think about the question posed to him, making our conversations more engaging.  This helps no matter what subject we may discus with our son.  The only side effect of this is now our son needs to understand everything, thus me and the wife believe this verbal marathon will continue way past into his adulthood.  Which I don’t mind you can’t correct anything with out asking the proper questions.  As long as my son ask questions, he will always be seeking knowledge, and it’s that knowledge that he seeks which he will ultimately base his decisions off of in the future.  So I continue to cheer him on his verbal marathon.

    Side note: My son has an extensive library with books on all types of subject matter, we encourage him whether or not the book is age appropriate since we will gladly read it to him, and one of his book is on human anatomy and we’ve gotten up to reproductive section, which he went ahead and looked over himself, bring us to where he found the word ejaculation.  So with that being said question time.

    Parents, how would you explain ejaculation to a seven year old?  How do you deal with question marathon stage?  Do you think the verbal marathon is appreciated in school especially in grades two and up?  Let me know what you think!

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