okay you have three boys i had two boys and two girls
right
my youngest is college age but he is so he's still around occasionally but um he's he's twenty two and in his last year of college
but uh we were very active with them when they were young whatever they were in gymnastics or soccer or baseball or basketball whatever we were always involved in the parent club and
coached some and went to all the games and
and course in Plano that's a big deal we'd even where we lived in Albuquerque before there's a lot of parent involvement in children's lives
how about where you are
that's good well i try i try to as much as possible um my oldest is nine he plays plays soccer and is getting ready to start playing football
oh
oh my
and uh i'm behind him a hundred percent on that and
right
and my my middle one is five he's playing soccer and T-ball
oh dear
my youngest is two and he wants to do it all so
yeah he's learning from the big brothers huh that's neat though and sometimes those that see their older brothers do it turn out to be pretty good because they pick up skills
yeah that's that's right
seems naturally you know just they start so young just kicking the ball and are are you pretty involved with with their uh
that's true
i try to be as much as i can
do you coach them or go out to parent nights
oh no i i uh go out to as many games as i can get to
uh-huh uh-huh
it's kind of hard hard hard with me just because i'm in the restaurant business and i have to work weekends but my wife's there all the time and
oh
mean that's that's one of my that's my downfall on my side of that that that aspect
um-hum
um-hum
which is i think's a lot of people's too
just in general
right
is that is there that everybody's working you know the the dad's away at work and then the then the wife goes away to work and kids are stuck with sitters and they're not involved in there as much with their their with their kids they let somebody else raise their kids
right
right right it well that's seems to be a a pretty current trend i i work in the schools and i see a lot of kids that
what
obviously are looking for a family and usually find it within a group at school rather than
at home because their parents are off working or uh usually you know a lot of times it's a single mother trying to raise and of course i i deal with adolescents so that's where it fourteen fifteen that's where it really starts coming out this
lack of of uh family life
what do you what do you what difference do you see in those kids that than ones with a mother and father in the participation
well uh they look for their security and their uh self-esteem uh outside of the home and usually in the wrong groups
really
and and uh
acceptance
right and they find that they're very easily unfortunately uh the kids who make them feel the most welcome
right
when new students come into school are the kids that are are uh on drugs or party a lot on weekends and things like that and and uh
yeah
wrong side of the fence
they're the first but they are the first ones that will come up and say you know you want to sit at my table in the cafeteria and let me help you to your classes and things like that and and uh
right
when you've got a a child that's just coming from a situation a move is a terrible thing on a child it's it's just such a traumatic especially if they've lived for any length of time
oh sure i mean the
in in the first place and they come up here and no friends and here are these people just throwing themselves and before you know it you've got a a kid involved in things you don't want them involved in and
it
and most of the time the move is made and then mom and daddy go right back to work right away and the kid's coming home to an empty house or they're coming home to take care of little brothers and sisters and and uh you've got these ready made friends just ready to go
that that's right
and and uh i you i don't know
what the answer is because i am a working woman and and i don't like to say if the women would stay home any more than i like to say if the men would stay home and and it's
right well you're fortunate that uh your kids are grown and i mean did did you did you work when your kids were growing up
right when
when my youngest was in third grade i went back to work but i stayed home up until then when by that time my oldest was
right
oh she's about
six years older than he is so she must have been in about uh
tenth grade i guess my oldest was and i had one in tenth and one in ninth and one in eighth and then this third grader and and uh
right
but i went to work for the school district where i was home in the summer i had two weeks off at Christmas i got left school at three four o'clock every day and was home
to take them to anything they needed to go to in the afternoons
did you work in the school or in the administrative end of it
uh no in the schools i i uh i did work some summers but it was never my work never took uh first place if if my kids needed me or needed to go somewhere that's where i was
it
right just
did you work at the same school that your kid was going through
and
um i when my youngest was in elementary school i worked at in his elementary school for three years
right
and uh but i had an understanding with the principal that under no circumstances was i to be treated any differently i don't want i said i don't want teachers coming to me in the middle of the day when they couldn't get to anybody else's mother in the middle of the day
that that it would be handled the same way they handled dealt with other parents other kids
it it gets real easy when a mother is in a school or a father even for a teacher to
every time some little thing goes wrong to run and pretty soon all you're hearing is negative things so it you know and those things need to be dealt with in the classroom by the teacher and not tattled necessarily
right
right
well it puts you it puts you in an awkward situation puts the child in an awkward situation
but it it
it worked well
it worked well with me and i and i told the principal i said if if uh my student my child does something that you feel deserves licks or some other discipline have at it you know i'm i'm i have always
right
wanted them to respect rules and teachers and and uh
i don't want them to think that i'm going to come riding to the rescue where every time something happens but
well they need to i mean any any child as far as that goes there's that there's that certain there's that that fine line between A and C you know that you have you need to ride and all kids do they they need discipline
right
well i think unfortunately what what we're seeing in the very few of the instances is that
uh for the parents who cannot be there to parent during the day their idea of parenting is
to come riding to the rescue and take their child's side without knowing
the whole story or even when they do know the whole story
right
it's it's either another student's fault or it's another it's a teacher's fault or it's it's anybody's and they
consider that being a good parent and that what when really what the child needs is their attention more of the time and it's
well that's usually what gets them in trouble to begin with not enough attention not enough attention like you were saying they go off into the wrong groups and get hooked up with the wrong people so
um-hum
um-hum
um-hum
it it it's and it's it's difficult i understand i i know a lot of single women that are working two jobs just to keep a roof over the kid's head and keep food on the table and i don't know how these women are supposed to have
time to to parent it's it's i don't i don't know what the answer is to it it's it's really sad i there may not be i but it it beats being it beats being homeless you know and
you don't know if there is one
there may not i mean it's just an ongoing ongoing problem right
