My parents owned a bar and from the time I can remember which was about four years old I spent my time sitting on a bar stool. Most kids were playing with their friends or some toys that they had I was always talking to strangers and playing with beer boxes. It did have its advantages, like as I got older I had a built in job and I really learned how to talk to adults. You always had to agree with them because you did not want to lose them as a customer. Always polite always considerate and never giving anyone a hard time, of course I learned how to curse like a sailor at a very young age and got a taste of beer when I was about ten years old. The place had its characters that were both humorous and sad at the same time. I always thought it was normal for a guy to spend 4 or 5 hours drinking at the end of a work day before they went home. Many times as I got older I would drive some guy home who was to drunk to drive. When I got him home I found out why he spent that amount of time in the bar after work, his wife was less than happy to see him when he got there not because he was drunk she just didn’t like the guy.

One of the things I loved as a kid was the fact that there was always cash around. I would ask my dad for a dime or a quarter and he would reach into the till and hand it over. One warm summer evening around 5 o’clock I asked my dad for a quarter and he said “no.” I asked again and he said “no.” I finally said “c’mon dad please.” He did not give in. I got as mad as an 11 year old could get and walked out passing four customers sitting at the bend in the bar right by the door and on my way out I said “CHEAP.” As soon as I said this I knew I was in trouble and I tried to think of words that sounded like cheap that I could use to try and convince him that he just heard wrong. Then I had to find a way to get back in without him seeing me. There was only one way in and that was through the bar. Well I rode my bike for a while and then decided to try and get passed the blockade. When I got back to the bar the bar was closed. The bar that was open 364 days a year was closed. He locked the door and made me knock to get in. I knocked on the door and he opened it. I asked him to hold the door open so I could bring in my bike. He stood there grabbed me by the arm and said to me “What did you say on the way out of here.” I told him I said “cheap.” The grip on my arm got tighter and he said to me “After all the nickels, dimes, and quarters I have given you call me cheap.” I said “sorry dad.” He then loosened his grip and told me to go upstairs. My dad took a break around 7o’clock for dinner and took a nap until 9 when he went back downstairs to work. Around 8:30 I learned the biggest lesson of my life. He called me into his bedroom and sat me down. My dad said to me “Do you know why I locked the door to the bar after you left.” I said “no.” He said to me “After you left the bar the four guys who heard what you said started talking about you and what an ungrateful and selfish kid you were, and I couldn’t take it. I had to put them out, I just got sick hearing them talk like this about my son.” My dad put those guys out in my defense and because of the ache he felt in his heart. My dad used my own stupidity as a time to teach me that I can’t say anything I want and he wanted me to understand that whether or not I think anybody else hears my comments doesn’t matter, somebody hears and starts to develop a perception of you as a person. I never forgot this lesson. You see all along I thought those guys would ride my dad on what a cheapskate they thought he was because he would not give me a quarter. I was so wrong. As I look at this story all I can think of is the way kids speak to their parents today at a younger age than I way when I called my dad cheap. Kids didn’t just wake up one day and decide that they were going to be rude to their parents. This has happened so slowly it was almost unrecognizable at first but now we ask “What are we going to do with these kids.” I could have named this essay “Cheap” because of how ironic it is that I called my father cheap in front of his customers when he truly was not cheap, and I ended up feeling cheap, and deservingly so, when my father was done with me. Even though it is cheap to sit a kid down and talk to him today the way my dad did, does anyone take the time to do it anymore?

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It’s 7:30 pm on Sunday night. I just came back from a four hour ride from Chambersburg, PA. I’m an independent educational contractor, and I teach all kinds of graduate classes in three different states. I have been gone since Saturday at 3:00 am and I am worn out. I was a public school teacher for 12 years, a high school and middle school administrator for 15 years, I teach graduate level courses to teachers, and have two Masters Degrees in Special Education and Educational Administration. I am a seasoned educator. As I was driving back home all I could think about was the fact that tomorrow at 2:05 I have appointment for a conference with my daughter Grace’s fifth grade teacher. Don’t get me wrong, Grace is a fine student, but there is something scary about about sitting across from another teacher listening to a report about my own daughter.

I don’t live with Grace (she lives with her mother), but I get her three or four days a week and she stays with me. I know she does have some trouble in math, but she receives tutoring twice a week, and I help her with her math homework when she’s over. She is a fantastic all around kid, but I know that she isn’t exactly the strongest in terms of her work habits. Sometimes I think that I love her so much that I let her get away with things. I don’t want to see her struggle with her school work; do I give her too much help?A good friend of mine who was also a teacher went in for a parent teacher conference for his own daughter. The teacher told him and his wife that she was concerned because their daughter seemed a bit withdrawn. She suggested that he and his wife go for outside help. What he did was to evaluate his own parenting. Basically, he discovered that he needed to spend more time with his daughter.

I think sometimes as a parent I hear things about my own kids and get defensive. I leave the conference and wonder who the report was about, my child or me? Being divorced can make me dwell even more on this question. I think divorced dads have even greater guilt and concern because they wonder if they are involved enough in the educational growth of their children. Time will tell. Right now I’ll just concentrate on tomorrow’s conference.