Three Lessons I Want to Teach My Sons

There are three things I hope to instill in my sons – a love of reading, an appreciation for food, and a show of manners. I believe I grew up with those same values through a combination of cultural osmosis, nature, and happenstance. I’m hoping to more actively demonstrate the joy and importance of such values in Bird and Deal.

Reading, Writing, Not So Much ‘Rithmetic

It’s no secret that I have a love affair with words. I suppose I would literally eat them up if AlphaBits and Alphabet soup were healthy and tasty. My grand idea over the weekend was to create a giant playset in the backyard comprised of pieces to climb all over that would spell out W-O-R-D-S. Get it? Then the boys could play on words?! Yeah, Bird and Deal stared at me with blank looks too, while Mac Daddy shook his head and asked himself why he married me. I am fascinated with words. The ability to take 26 letters and craft a story is simply an astounding talent. Roald Dahl, Anne Lamott, and Mark Dunn are masters. What, you aren’t familiar with Mark Dunn? He wrote one of the most clever books I have ever read, demonstrating pure mastery of language. His book Ella Minnow Pea tells the tale of a town that starts banning letters from use, and as the town bans those letters, they fall off the pages of the novel too. I’m telling you, Mark Dunn can weave letters into magic.

I get downright giddy thinking about some of my favorite books. I teared up reading Charlotte’s Web to the boys recently. Nevermind that I’ve read it 20 odd times. Meeting Kate DiCamillo shall be forever etched in my memory, marking a real live author sharing her words of wisdom with lil ole hopeful me. It seems I have a penchant for children’s books. One of the great benefits of being a mother is reliving my childhood, edited down to the good parts only. I get hives in the library with all that kinetic reading energy surrounding me. Books are my fuel. You’ll see stacks of them scattered throughout every room in our house. I simply love to read, and so far, it looks like that lesson is is a home run.

Food for thought.

I happen to hate kids menus everywhere. The culture of food in this country is a menacing disservice to us all, but especially to children. Food companies sell sugar, fat, junk laden morsels in boxes and pouches with Hannah Montana and SpongeBob smirking on the labels in an effort to sell poison to the children of America. You heard me. Poison. Nothing in a Lunchable counts as real food. Obesity. Diabetes. Heart disease. These should not be conditions associated with children, but here we are pushing crap into innocent taste buds. I am generally flexible when it comes to doling out treats and eating out but I do no budge on certain things. In my house you will not find high fructose corn syrup. I try try try to stay away food dyes and high sodium processed junk. The term “junk food” is an oxymoron that no one seems to question. Bird and Deal have a palate for healthy, REAL food. We are lucky. But I don’t have a family of healthy eaters on luck alone. It took work.

I want my sons to appreciate food and savor its flavor, origins, everything about it. They were fascinated with the lemon groves in Italy and peered into the displays at cheese shops in the same way they press their noses on the glass at chocolate shops. We talk to them about nutrition, ingredients, preservatives, farmers. They sit on stools in the kitchen and chat with me while I cook, and Mac Daddy has taught them how to crack an egg. I want my sons to grow up making healthy, smart choices. I want them to know how to prepare a simple meal without resorting to the freezer and microwave. I want them to know the heavenly joy of licking the juices of ripe mango from their lips and plucking mussels from their garlicky broth. So far Bird and Deal show a curiosity of the world from a culinary perspective. Food is a delightful way we can glimpse into other cultures. Teaching my sons about food – eating it and cooking it- is the only way we can teach a social studies lesson and eat the fruits of our labor.

Forget the Gap, Mind Your Manners

I am a stickler for manners. Good manners, that is. If you compliment me on my outfit or the tidiness of my house I shall be happy. But if you compliment me on the good manners and behavior of my children, I shall simply beam as I swell with pride. Granted, this feeling does not wash over me all that often. However, twice in the last week an elderly couple and a little grandmotherly woman commented on how polite Bird and Deal were at the grocery store. I figure a nod from them carries more weight since they presumably come from a time when good manners were de rigueur. You know, when men wore hats and ladies wore gloves. Perhaps I romanticize this notion, but you get my drift.

Bird and Deal learned to say please and thank you before they could speak. Sign language helped them ask for more milk as well as learn some very basic, yet important, manners. They often need a nudge or a throat clearing ahem from me, but most of the time they say please and thank you unprompted. We eat dinner at the table every night. TV off. Napkins on laps. The boys set the table and know darn well that the napkin goes on the left. They require some gentle reminders about talking with a mouthful of corn pudding and interrupting, but in time, this too shall be second nature. Our theory is that good manners start at home. We cannot expect our sons to be grown men in a job interview and suddenly just know how to use proper manners. It simply doesn’t work that way. I tell the boys that using good manners is a way we demonstrate respect to people. All people. When we get off the park and ride bus at the airport, Bird and Deal always thank the driver. Now this is something the driver notes time and time again, and I must say, I rarely see adults thanking him.

I also tell Bird and Deal that the way they behave is a reflection of our family. As a marketer, they hear me talk about branding all the time, so when I explain that we all represent Brand Ewen, they get it. Sometimes our brand is smudged with red clay and the occasional bloody nose from a kerfuffle. It’s a work in progress. But they know that manners matter.

And so, along with all the other dos and don’ts of parenthood and childhood, I try to weave in three things that will carry my sons for the long haul. I don’t care of they can’t build a deck or clean a fish or shoot under par. I do care about them nurturing and nourishing their brains, their bellies, and being kind to people along the way.