Earning Great Kids

I was emailing with the principal of my kids' school last week (who is totally great and I think should make $100,000 a year) (seriously) and he closed one of his messages with "you are blessed to have such great kids". First of all, we absolutely are. They are beautiful, athletic and have a very high capacity for intelligence. No bias.

But, we have also worked our asses off to have great kids. Starting from day one. One week after I went back to teaching, The Husband quit his job to stay home with our daughter. We decided that we were going to raise her, not a daycare. There are some amazing day cares out there for sure, but our decision was not to go that route. As a result we were poor. Really fucking poor. Go without power for a week until you can pay the bill and eat spaghetti for a month straight poor. The Husband starting driving a cab and we would eat based on how much money he made in tips. If he made $3 in a night (and sometimes he did you cheap fuckers) then we had spaghetti with the ghetto canned sauce.

The point is not to feel sorry for us, just to illustrate that we made huge sacrifices to spend time with our kids. We did not have cable and spent a lot of time watching Street Smarts and NYPD Blue reruns. We did not have a cell phone. Either of us. We shared one crappy car. I did not go to the salon. All of our clothes came from Goodwill. We did not eat out and did nothing recreational that cost a penny. We even had *gasp* DIAL UP INTERNET!

Do you know what we did do? We read to our kids. We went to state parks and walked trails. We visited family - partly for the free food. We hung out, played games and talked to our kids. Actually talked to them. Got to know them. Watched them grow. One of us was there for every single milestone.

And you know what? None of them remember eating ghetto spaghetti. They don't remember not having cable and they didn't know it was weird that our family only had one car and basically no technology. They do remember us. They remember our experiences and they still like hanging out all together.

We are a tight family. We hang out. Things are better financially, and we do have cable and fast internet and a couple cars. But we still have each other. We still go camping for vacation. We still go hiking and we still read. Now my kids are recommending books to me. And we talk. A lot. The reason I have so many great stories about my kids and my friends pestered my into this blog is because I actually hang out with my offspring. I like them. I enjoy spending time with them. I don't shove them off on my parents every weekend so I can go get drunk with my friends. I would rather read Wimpy Kid books or watch iCarly.

Do you know what else? All of my kids are the very best in their class at reading. They get great grades, and all love school. And, this may be a bit of wishful thinking, but I think I'm going to have great teenagers, too. I'm sure they will make bad decisions sometimes, but because I've been interested in them their entire lives I think they'll do okay.

We do have great kids. But, we didn't get them by magic. It has been hard fucking work. But, I think the payoff will be some excellent people with whom I will enjoy sharing my life. Who knows what life will bring. Maybe someday the Husband and I will be eating ghetto spaghetti again. But, I know that if that happens I'll have a table full of people that I love. Nothing else matters.