Who Will Raise Your Kids Since It Won’t Be You?

Child play

I can only imagine the guilt and pain that comes every day a mother or sometimes a father drops their young children at a daycare facility where people they barely know care for their off spring. People that seldom have more than a high school education, and seldom have much life experience beyond high school because day care workers tend to be young. The times when the young ones cling to their mommy and/or daddy and plead “Do you have to work today?” has to be one of the most heart retching experience any parent must face. This is hard and made harder by the knowledge it’s not necessary if the parent makes the right decisions and displays courage. Our experience with AdvoCare has presented to me lots of examples of parents who no longer have both parents working out of the home and entrusting the raising of their kids to some other mostly unknown persons.

Paques01

The importance of being present for your kids is one my wife and I learned early on. And I’m proud to say our kids saw virtually no time in daycare. Being there for your kids is a gift to them you can never give at a later time. That’s why it’s called a “present”. My beautiful wife and I have raised three kids. Though using the past-tense is a little premature since 1) Our youngest is just now entering high school, and 2) Do you ever finish raising your kids? But we have “raised” our kids past the age of any needed daycare. I’m proud of the decisions we made to sacrifice the extra income and status that could have come from working outside the home and leaving the responsibility of raising children to those whose values may not be ours.

Let’s start by stating what must be said. I am sympathetic to the argument that parents only do this because they must. I’m sympathetic not because the statement is true but because it is so common and thought to be true and too many people have fallen into the false belief that no options exist to allow for reasonable, mature adults to bypass the daycare lie and spend the necessary 10-18 years giving of themselves the most valuable community gesture they can. All of society benefits from a well-raised child. And every study over many years and common sense shows that kids raised with at least one parent in the home are far better adjusted and far less likely to travel down dark paths as they grow into adulthood. And such kids are far more likely to be successful as adults and possess the positive values instilled by parents who were present.

LYS87girls

And to the hyperventilating Liberal haters out there who will falsely claim I’m just advocating a 1950s society where the little woman is the care taker of the kids and subservient to the husband I say quite loudly SHUT UP. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. In my house it was me who was home with the kids, most of the time. We became parents October 31, 1987 and in the 26 years since my wife has usually worked 40+ hour per week jobs outside the house. I too worked 40+ hours per week, and continue to do so. But I either worked out of the home or in jobs that had me home by early to mid-afternoon before kids returned home from school. For about 2-3 years before my son was old enough we had a Nanny come into our home even though our combined incomes were only middle-class. But even during this time I was still home early in the afternoon before my oldest daughter got home from school. Since opening our audio and video production company Total Broadcasting Service in 2005 we’ve twice tried to bring Mommy home only to find the lost outside income and health benefits she had while working for someone else too much to overcome. The result- I coached my sons and daughters in softball, baseball, soccer, football, and basketball. I, thus, got to know their friends and the Moms and Dads of their friends. I saw to it that they got to their homework after school and that they didn’t come home to an empty house. They were safe and happy.

Your kids deserve the opportunity to be kids. They deserve the opportunity to sleep until they wake, instead of being woke at the crack of dawn, hustled to the car and driven to that house or daycare facility and hurriedly left in the hands of someone who isn’t mom or dad. Wouldn’t your kids eat better when you’re preparing their fresh fruits and vegetables for snacks and parts of meals than day after day of mass-produced mac & cheese? When they fall down and cry wouldn’t their boo-boo be best nurtured by Mom or Dad than by someone who needs to quickly put them down in order to tend to someone else’s child?

And since day care is so darned expensive just how much is gained by parents not being there? According to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) the cost of daycare for infants and toddlers is $300-$1564 per month (and I don’t even want to think about the $300 places. YIKES!). The state of Washington, where I live, is the seventh most expensive state in the U.S. for infant-toddler care at over $10,000 per year. In 2012 the average working woman made only $35,000. So, in a 2-income household the average working woman was leaving care and raising for her youngest kids for an extra $25,000 or less. Probably more like $20,000 when the unnecessary expense of gas and car maintenance and mileage, as well as eating out are subtracted.

Could you work at home part-time, raise your own kids, and make $20,000? With Advocare you definitely can. Again using myself as an example we’re working a plan that will have us earning $12,000 in our first year representing Advocare’s high quality health, nutrition and weight loss products. And we have only been able to devote about 5 hours per week to the effort. Naturally we expect that will grow in year two. Our friends and mentors started with AdvoCare almost four years ago and worked it on a more full-time basis and earned $60,000 their first year, and over $166,000 in their third. Could you raise your kids on $60,000 per year? How about $166k? And consider this, are you in a job where you could realistically expect to grow your income to $60k annually in 3 years? How about $166k? Most people will say no.

And we’ve found the “selling” of Advocare easy. And so will you. It really comes down to using the products. My wife and I lost over 100 pounds combined in 8 months using the 24 Day Challenge and Advocare products thereafter. After using the products, you simply tell people of your experience and encourage them to try them too. How hard is that? What makes it even easier is that Advocare provides you with an incredible training program that should you choose to participate, listen and follow will make success and a good income inevitable. You can do this.

Your kids would want you to. Your kids want you to be healthy and to have the energy and the time to devote to them. And that’s what you want too. Like all things it will require you to try. You must try. If you don’t try you’re guaranteed to fail. Simple.

Call me to learn more: 425-687-0100.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

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The Little Engine That Could, Could be You

Cover of "The Little Engine That Could (O...

In recent months I’ve been reminded of a childhood book we all remember, and remember with fondness. The Little Engine That Could is a children’s book, published in 1930 and written by Watty Piper. In recalling this tale I am reminded of a more recent adult self-help book by Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten. Don’t hit, don’t fight, be nice, share, listen to your teacher, etc.

Cover of "All I Really Need to Know I Lea...

And we also learned, or should have learned, to try hard and to help others. Few books teach this lesson with such clarity as this little children’s book. I recommend you click on the link below and refresh your memory of the old story.

Watty Piper’s 1930 “The Little Engine That Could” – Print Magazine.

I continue to represent AdvoCare Health/Nutrition/Weight Loss products while continually saying to myself and my wife, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…” And we’re chugging up that mountain and as in that story we’re slowly going faster and faster.

In the story the toy train‘s engine breaks down and strands the toys and nutritious food intended for the children on the other side of the mountain. The toy clown asks for help to get the train and its toys over the mountain to the children. But nobody will help.

And think about who these big arrogant train engines represent. The Shiny New Engine might be the bank that turns down your home refi. The Big Strong Engine might be your boss that turns down your raise AND asks you to work extra hours away from your kids. The Rusty Old Engine might be your parents who look at your Multi-Level-Marketing or Direct Sales company and say, isn’t that nice while they turn away and provide no referrals, help or encouragement.

The little blue engine is you; anonymously doing your work around the train station. You’re moving train cars from one place to another. You’ve never been over the mountain. But you could…if you tried.

No if you’re going to get that train over the mountain, you’re going to have to do it yourself. We’re going to have to do it ourselves. And…I think I can…I think I can…I think I can. As we chug chug chug along it gets easier. There is no question you, we, can make it up that mountain and get over to the other side to help people who need us. But we can’t do it if we stop; if we give up.

Chug chug chug your way to the top. Then you can coast alllllll the way down the mountain, all the way saying happily, “I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could…”

Robert Fulgham was right.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

Be Professional and Courteous- Return Your Calls

Texting on a qwerty keypad phone

Increasingly it’s becoming rare for people to do the simple task of returning someones telephone call. And it shows a lack of courtesy and professionalism as well as humanism that is becoming pervasive in this country.

Let’s be clear my opening statement excuses all non-returned calls to strangers who have no known connection to you. If someone calls and leaves me a message and I don’t know them and they don’t identify someone we know mutually or they don’t give me compelling reason to call them back, I probably won’t. If you’re calling someone who doesn’t know you it’s YOUR responsibility to give them reason to call you back.

I’ve been deluged with this problem lately; and I’ll admit I’m venting a little. But what has pushed my buttons to the point of writing this blog is how many people don’t return calls who initially contacted me or who personally asked me to call them. Quite candidly, that’s rude. Just like I was always taught about the practice of being on time for a meeting or appointment where being late tells those who are waiting for you that you and your schedule is more important in your own mind than is the person left waiting or their schedule. Not returning a phone call to someone who took the time to call you, or return your call simply says to that person, “You’re not THAT important to me”. And what does that say about your own arrogance? Or courtesy? Or character?

Let’s face it, some calls you don’t want to return for any number of reasons. But for whatever reason at that time you don’t want to speak with the person who attempted to call you. But here’s a revelation, we all have to sometimes do things we’d rather not. I’d rather sleep in until whenever I wake up rather than rise at 5:30am like I’ve done everyday since starting my company Total Broadcasting Service in 2005. But though I have no boss watching over me to see to it that I’m on time and that I’m showing up, I do have a family depending on me to bring home the bacon. I have clients expecting me to complete the tasks I’ve promised to complete for them. And I find that I can keep those promises best when I rise early.

I will join others like Pamela Paul of the New York Times in putting some of the blame for the lost art of returning phone calls on technology. Why return a call when you can email or text? By emailing or texting a Reply you can say what you want to say and be done with it and not have to listen to whatever it is the person calling you wants to say. This is exactly my point. It takes an awful lot of arrogance and not too much love or caring to make a judgement that you don’t want to hear what a friend, business person or family member has to say before they’ve even said it. You’re not clairvoyant. As Paul writes in her 2011 Times article certainly teens and young adults have long ago abandon any sense of needing to return calls. A business associate I was speaking with yesterday had the kind and thoughtful idea of buying an AdvoCare 24 Day Challenge and accessory products from my wife and I for his 24-year-old daughter. He put me in touch with her. and when I spoke with her she enthusiastically sounded like she wanted the high quality health and nutrition products that AdvoCare offers. But upon talking again with her father he lamented how his daughter wasn’t returning his phone calls and that this was not unusual. I related to him my complete understanding since I have a 25-year-old daughter who has never felt compelled to return my calls.

I also recently had dealings with a 23-year-old daughter of one of my best friends. Despite his chastising her and my repeated attempts to reach her she simply would not call me back. After about 1 week she emailed me. How nice. NOT!

But don’t let me give you the impression that my negative experiences in this area are reserved for teens and young adults. While its my sense that age group is more frequently neglectful in the courteous practice of returning phone calls, they are by no means exclusive to the practice of not returning calls.

In years past when my sales career involved about 6-hours a day of calling clients on the telephone I developed the habit of seldom leaving phone messages. To do so was pointless. Not only was it unlikely that I would get a return call; but leaving a message also made it far more awkward for me to be able to call again. So if I failed to reach a client or potential client I simply said to my inquisitor “No message. Thank you. I’d rather call back. When’s best?”. And of course if there was no inquisitor, only a voice mail or recorder, I wouldn’t leave any message. If I was cold calling I used the baseball practice of 3-strikes and you’re out. Meaning, if I called three times without reaching the person I was trying to reach I would stop calling and be rid of the annoying task of repeatedly calling back. If my efforts were directed at a past client my efforts would expand depending on the value I placed on that client. Still, it was a rare client with whom I’d leave a message and trust to get a call-back.

And perhaps more frustrating than anything is that it has never been easier to return calls. Nearly everyone has their own mobile phone. With that, many still have a home and work telephone number. It’s inconceivable that at no time while walking driving or sitting and watching TV that a phone call can’t be returned. And please, get over yourself if you’re thinking “I’m just so busy”. If you return a call right away you don’t have it on the to-do list to be forgotten later. Just a tip…

I am not a fan of email and texting conversations. Like a lot of people I think the anonymous or faceless text or email allows me to have a much “sharper” writing pen than I would ever have with my tongue. And not being able to hear or convey tones, inflections, or facial or body language I have frequently been misunderstood with emails and text messaging. I’m sure I’m not alone in this victimization. And what makes it more frustrating is that I’m a fairly decent and accomplished writer, having done it professionally for much of 30 years.

The saddest part of this scenario is that I view the developments of texting, emailing, and Facebooking

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

as a de-humanizing of our culture. We’re far more than mere scribbles on a white screen. We are laughs, and smiles and sometimes harsh or serious tones all of which can be heard or seen but can’t be conveyed with any degree of effectiveness with the written word. As human beings we grow and learn from contact with one another. We celebrate. We educate. And how much of each is being lost by our increasing efforts to avoid human contact, human touch? I fear it’s much.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

Call for Video Production Services: 425-687-0100

Call for Video Production Services: 425-687-0100

Go to our website, read our story and try some AdvoCare. You won't regret it.

Go to our website, read our story and try some AdvoCare. You won’t regret it.

Not a Fan of Ken Griffey Jr.

Ken Griffey, Jr.

Ken Griffey, Jr.

 

The Seattle Mariners will honor their best player of all-time tonight when they induct Ken Griffey Jr. in to the Mariner’s Hall of Fame. A precursor, no doubt, of Griffey’s ultimate first-ballot election into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown when he becomes eligible in 2016. Only a fool would argue that Griffey doesn’t belong in either Hall. And I certainly won’t be doing that. But at a time when the city of Seattle will once again bathe this man in all its love, all the love its ever felt for any personality, it’s important for me to express my dissatisfaction with Griffey, the man. I am not a fan.

 

Being a big-time sports fan I am certainly a fan of all that Griffey did on the field. His array of acrobatic outfield dives, slides, fence climbing catches could get him a Hall nomination alone. He was the best defensive outfielder in baseball through the 90s. His glorious swing made for 630 home runs, sixth on the Major League Baseball all-time list. Fourth All-time if you eliminate the cheaters…which we should. To me even more impressive is the fact that only 5 players (clean players) have hit as many as 600 career home runs and absolutely nobody is on the horizon to do it again. Sadly Griffey’s career included only three playoff appearances for his teams. And he never played in the World Series, surpassing Ernie Banks of Chicago Cub fame as the best player to never make it to the baseball players ultimate competition.

 

Yes, Griffey was an incredible talent. And he was also an incredible jerk. I’ve always been amazed how lovingly Seattle continues to embrace a man who twice gave the city his backside and his middle finger as he headed out of town. By contrast Alex Rodriguez was vilified the moment he signed the richest contract in baseball history to go to a team that had been to the playoffs two of the previous three years. A-Rod was booed lustily when he returned to Safeco Field as a Texas Ranger in 2001 (All this long preceding the revelation or even suspicion that A-Rod was a multiple time cheat and liar). But Griffey was practically given the keys to the city when he returned as a Cincinnati Red player for the first time in 2007. How quickly we forget that he forced his way out of Seattle demanding to be traded prior to the 2000 season; and then hamstringing the Mariner’s ability to trade for value by limiting what team he would accept being traded to only his hometown Cincinnati Reds.

 

Ken Griffey ---- This image was moved from Fil...

 

Griffey’s narcissism and ingratitude was demonstrated one final time with perhaps the most classless retirement of any Superstar athlete ever. Disgusted at having been benched in 2010 because of his pathetic .184 batting average with zero home runs and only 7 RBI, Griffey left town without a word. Not a goodbye to his teammates, a fair well to fans, a closing interview, nothing but his proverbial “bird”, and a curt statement sent to his longtime friend and boss Mariner President Chuck Armstrong.

 

Griffey’s narcissism was evident early on. As a lonely 19-year-old playing for the Bellingham Mariners he attempted suicide; a gesture mostly, but one in which the individual is demanding attention. As if the number one draft pick in the entire MLB Draft the previous June wasn’t getting enough attention. I am genuinely sorry he was sad and suicidal; knowing him as I do I never took it seriously.

 

Know him? Why yes, I do. As much as a local small-time reporter from over 20-years ago can know him. Which isn’t much. He wouldn’t allow it. In the 3 years I covered Griffey and the Mariners as a reporter for a radio station and for my own syndicated daily radio interview show he never once made himself available to my microphone. But that wasn’t unusual. Griffey almost never made himself available to any local reporter, only national reporters. I’m sympathetic to those who would claim support of Griffey’s stance of not talking to reporters and remaining “private” if it were true. But it’s not. He would talk to reporters. Just not local reporters. We were too little for him in his eyes. For the record I found his father to be a prick too. But that’s another story.

 

Griffey has friends who will tell you he was kind to children, and teammates and that he was fun-loving and a practical joker. I’m sure he was all of those things. But a Hall of Fame Person is someone kind to most-everyone not just the chosen few who adore you. Junior will go into the team Hall of Fame tonight and the bigger Hall in 3 years and he earned it. He just doesn’t get into my Hall.

 

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

 

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

 

 

Racism? You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

English: Oprah Winfrey at the White House for ...

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey made her first public statement about the Trayvon Martin verdict yesterday. When I heard it I was extremely disappointed in this icon of American TV. I felt she had betrayed her better intelligence in favor of a bias one-sided argument that I didn’t understand. Then, I took a journey back to my young adult years and remembered one of my all time favorite phrases. You don’t know what you don’t know.

The Queen of daytime TV talk shows said that she saw the Trayvon Martin case as being synonymous with Emmett Tillman.  Tillman was a 14-year-old black boy who was murdered in 1955 by a pair of racist white assholes who took offense to the precocious boy whistling at a white woman. His death was not justifiable then, now or ever. It was abhorrent and it was one of the ignition switches to the Civil Rights Movement. A movement that thankfully changed this country for the better, for everyone, and made it so that racism was the exception and not the rule. But Trayvon Martin was killed because he attacked a man and was beating him up. It makes no difference whether you think George Zimmerman was right or wrong for following the Florida teen. The evidence showed the questionable following of the teen and the subsequent fight and shooting were essentially two different incidents. And while closely timed together; they were two different incidents. I couldn’t believe Oprah with all her demonstrated wisdom couldn’t see this.

Then I remembered, you don’t know what you don’t know.

In 1985 I was a student at the Ron Bailie School of Broadcast. This is where I met my wife of the past 26 years; my black beautiful wife. At the school we learned all kinds of aspects of radio broadcasting and some TV. We learned to write news copy, to announce news copy; to write commercials, and to be creative and bold in our voice work.

At the school in the commercial writing and producing segment of the curricula I had developed a fictional radio character I named, Bueno Mike. Bueno Mike was an English Explorer; not unlike David Livingstone of Stanley and Livingstone lore. Though he was exaggerated and a caricature. He was a joke.

We had fun at school. And we had fun playing with and inventing our characters…our commercial characters. I appreciated the help of my future wife and others at the school who seemed to be truly entertained by Bueno Mike and the various scenarios I put him in, in the radio spots I produced. But it all came to an end when I announced an idea and exposed that which I didn’t know.

I decided my Bueno Mike character needed an assistant, an aide, a sherpa. I decided Bueno Mike needed Sambo. My fictitious aide to my fictitious British Explorer would be a young boy of color and I would name him Sambo. I was thinking of the childhood story Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman, written in 1899, in which a smart Indian boy outwits some tigers and churns them into butter. I was also thinking of the now defunct restaurant chain of the same name which used the Little Black Sambo images in its promotion and restaurant decor.

English: No racism Lietuvių: Ne rasizmui

I wasn’t thinking of the term being racist, derogatory, or offensive to my future wife and other people of color. It was 1985 and I was 21 years old. I didn’t have a clue that the term, Sambo, was offensive in any way. When it was pointed out to me that it was, I thought how could it be, there was a Sambo’s restaurant on 116th St. in Bellevue my home town. I couldn’t understand. Needless to say, when I enthusiastically announced my plans to give Bueno Mike his little Sambo aide, my future wife was livid. She couldn’t believe I would be so insensitive and offensive. And she was angry. And she didn’t hide that anger. In turn I was angry because I couldn’t understand why she was so angry at me. And I became defensive.

An older black woman named Shirley was a member of our broadcast school class. She worked as a bartender. She was a fun, and wily old woman.  She said she was going to the broadcast school to complete some unfinished schooling from her youth. She had no hope or expectation that it would turn into any kind of career. If it weren’t for her my wife and I may never have been married. She heard all the ruckus between my future wife and myself. When we turned to her for her point of view she gently laughed…at me mostly (I think)…and kindly, calmly pointed out to my lovely girlfriend that I meant no harm and that Sambo was very commonly used even though it was offensive and always had been. Sambo as a fictional character depicting people of color in a subservient, or slave position dates back to the 18th century. Sambo was a character in Vanity Fair of 1847 by Thackeray and in Harriet Beacher Stowe‘s Uncle Tom‘s Cabin in 1852. But I swear I didn’t know any of this at the time.

Sambo's Sign

Sambo’s Sign

Twenty-eight years later it seems incredible to you, the reader, and even to me the author, that I was oblivious to the fact that Sambo was offensive to black people. But how many of you knew there were over 11-hundred Sambo’s restaurants in the United States that didn’t close there doors until 1983? Many of those restaurant locations were sold to another restaurant chain known as Denny’s.

You don’t know what you don’t know. And when it comes to race in this country; I think it’s abundantly evident we don’t know much.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

Call for Video Production Services: 425-687-0100

Call for Video Production Services: 425-687-0100