Popular thought suggests that there is a spark inside all of us. Personal experience is that some shine brighter than others. That doesn’t devalue anyone. It just is. Accept it or change it. It’s your spark.

Mine twists like a lighthouse in a windstorm. It is either lost through waves of bourbon or cutting through so much fog to find you like a spotlight. When I shine I want you to shine with me. It is lonely at the top.

We live in a land of opportunity. The cobblestones are plated gold. The dust a blend of pixie. But dreams are not granted to the masses. We must walk uphill in every way, knocking on doors and selling our wares and what passes for awareness. Don’t sell yours short. The highest bid is often the most careless.

And there are dark doors that figuratively represent whatever you need them to. Literally they are but hinged barriers to the path ahead. The light from the other side glows like a burning picture frame. It is an invitation. It is a warning. It has a handle that only needs to be turned.

Opening doors is why steps are taken.

It may require pause. New paths are hard to start and old paths end too quickly. The scene from the doorstep is of rolling hills and promise. My feet are tired and anxious. There is a stack of shoes in the foyer, each covered in potential and glowing with dust (the smaller shoes shine the brightest). The surrounding floor grows sterile and absent as it stretches down the hallway. I cannot remember if I am coming or going. I am paused, and I am wondering where to put my foot down.

Some look to the heavens when they have nowhere else to turn. Some look there first. I look up and I see stars that stretch forever. I find more perspective than answers.

Perhaps it is the time of year. Perhaps it is the wind in your hair. Life is a dance of wonder and melancholy, and each step brings a gasp, each spin leaves a smile. We are tussled and chapped, and the deeper the dip the more we feel alive.

Perhaps decisions are best made when we don’t know that we are making them. We are lost in the movement. We are paused before doorways. We are always looking for a better place.

That is what I am doing here, writing in circles and wasting language best spent on documents and deadlines — thirsty words wandering from waterhole to wonder and always with the stars in their eyes, always with the day’s dust behind them.

Popular thought suggests that there is a spark inside all of us. Mine is helping to keep us warm, and perhaps that is enough of a wonder for anyone.

_______________________________________

Photo by ImaRawkStar

My alarm goes off every morning at 5:00 AM, because every night I think about how great it would be to get up early and read, have a nice bowl of cereal, take a relaxing warm bath and start my day.  But every morning I wake up forty five minutes later and rush to get out the door because of my addiction to ‘sleep snoozing’.  I have to admit, while I do set my alarm every night wishing that tomorrow will be different, I never really thought long and hard about what the consequences might be if I continue to set these goals and fail to meet them.  I will no longer trust myself.

I consider myself to be a pretty trustworthy guy.  I have my downfalls, like not always unloading the dishwasher in the morning like I’m supposed to, or not finishing every project I start around the house.  But for the most part I try to be the reliable professional so that others will be able to count on me.  I had never thought about how trusting I was of myself, or “Self Trust” as the Stephen M. R. Covey calls it in his book “The Speed of Trust.”

Every day that I set my alarm for 5:00 AM and say I’m going to get up early and do all these amazing things and then don’t, is just reinforcing in my mind that when I make a commitment to myself, I probably won’t keep it.  This little thing will lead to me not trusting myself for even bigger commitments I make to myself.  For example,  every Father’s Day I make some resolutions about how I can be a better father.  This year I noticed that my resolutions were a lot like the ones I made the year before.  To read my Bible more, to pray more for my family…will I follow through with those, or will I, like my alarm, hit snooze on the days when it isn’t easy and excuse it away by saying there just isn’t time.  Even before this lunch break I had a decision to make.  Should I grab my Bible or Speed of Trust?

It’s something I need to work on.  And from now on, I’m going to only set my alarm for 5:00 AM on days that I will actually get up.  And tomorrow it will be 5:45.

PS.  Merry Christmas in July!

It’s
a question that I never thought I’d ask.  My stance has always been that
my kids are going to college.  Not negotiable.  End of story.
 But recently, I’ve started to seriously question the value of college.
 Am I crazy?

I grew up
in a family where education was paramount.  It was my ticket to a stable,
rewarding career, networking opportunities, and the like.  Even though I
could’ve easily gone across the street to Virginia Tech (go Hokies!) for a
solid engineering degree, I went to Cornell University.  I was lucky I got in, got some aid, got some internships/part-time jobs, and had parents to
support a lot of it.  Now almost 15 years out of school, I don’t regret
the decision.   But times have changed.  A lot. Anybody
else’s kids also growing up fast?  I’m thinking (worrying?!) about their futures
constantly.  Here’s what I’ve noticed:

1. The value of college has gone down.  If the goal of college is
   to get a great entry-level, experience-building, vision-broadening job
   afterwards, then let’s face it.  A lot of majors are more interesting
   than they are practical.  What jobs can a 21-year-old sociology major
   do that a savvy, hard-working 19-year-old high school graduate couldn’t
   do?  Sure, college graduates make a
   ton more than non-graduates over a lifetime.  But break
   that down further by degrees (take out the physicians, engineers, nurses,
   accountants, etc) and the picture becomes more fuzzy.  Top schools
   still carry a lot of weight, and they help open the first doors of
   employment.  But once in the workforce, employers care more about
   your work performance than where you went to school.

   On top of that, the best way to get a job is to get connected.
     4 of out 5 jobs are never
   even listed on job boards.  College is just one
   round-about way of many ways to meet, connect with, and influence people
   who hire people.  How many astute 19-year-old golf caddies get
   awesome internships when they chat up their clients?  How many dads
   tell their 22-year-old kid to give his business partner a call for a
   simple “informational meeting” that leads to a launched career? 

2. The price of college has become astronomical.  Lots of talk these days
   about a higher education bubble (Instapundit has
   at least one link per week on it).  Prices are skyrocketing
   unreasonably – private tuition has gone up 70% in just 10 years,
   public tuition has doubled.   Even the brightest students
   getting decent jobs out of college are faced with $100k in debt.  How
   many of their best years will they toil to pay that off?  And what if
   they don’t get that career-launching job?   How many lattes do
   they make to pay for one psych class, let alone 5+ years of classes (@$9k per year, and at $9/hour, and 10 lattes/hour, that’s 10,000 lattes just for one year of class!)?
    Just last week, I was working from a Starbucks and overheard this
   25-yo guy telling his girlfriend that going to college was the worst
   mistake of his life.  His face was wrecked with worry because of the
   mountain of debt staring at him.

   If the cost of tuition continually outpaces inflation year after year, you
   better believe that a correction is coming.  And the ironic thing is
   this:  most of the money pouring into colleges is being used to make
   college more fun and comfortable, not more educational or useful.
    Someone else’s arms race will cost you an arm and a leg.  (The
   bubble will pop eventually – just last week, a $10,000 college degree
   was proposed by the governor in Texas.)  

3. There are other ways to acquire marketable
   skills.  The
   world is changing – you can prove to employers that you’ve got skills,
   character, and smarts in other ways.   For my consulting
   business, I’d take someone who’s reliable, hard-working, resourceful, and
   a quick learner over some smart, entitled college-educated brat any day.
    Plus, education is becoming more open-source every day. Some MIT lectures
   can be seen online.  The Khan Academy (featured
   at TED) has now
   grown to 2,100+ free educational videos (everything from Algebra to
   photosynthesis to Napolean).  

   I’m betting that this is just the beginning.  We will see a whole
   industry rise up to fill this vacuum – video game makers re-inventing
   edutainment, educational entrepreneurs inventing boy-scout-type programs
   and “badges” geared at 21st Century skills, post-high-school programs
   heavy on internships and mentoring, and specialized academies teaching
   teenagers how to code algorithms.  Think of all the professional
   certifications that there are now for adults – why couldn’t these be
   adapted for the high-school / college demographic?  Why couldn’t a
   motivated high school student get certified in project management?

4. Do 18-year-olds really have a big enough vision about the
   world and a balanced enough view of themselves to know what they want to do?  Sure, they might
   know what they’re good at, but what are they passionate about?  They’ve
   spent 90% of their time with people the same age as them.  Unless they’ve
   already done extensive traveling, met a lot of different types of people, been
   in different business settings, succeeded (and failed) at a few things, and
   held various types of jobs, they really have no idea.  Heck, I know
   30-year-olds who are still wandering.  It also makes me wonder if this is
   why 6 out of 10 college kids take more than 4 years to finish.  Why not
   work 2 years and then go to college when they can better afford it, they have
   skin in the game, and they know themselves better.

As crazy as
it sounds, I’m advocating for an “independent study” model for college. Take
that tuition money and tailor-make skill-building, life-building experiences
for junior.  He can travel the world.  Start a business.  Hire
coaches/mentors.  Get various internships/apprenticeships.  Compete
in competitions.   For a motivated young mind, wouldn’t this motivate
them even more?

Of course,
there are some fields that absolutely require a college education (like
nursing, med school, teaching, engineering, etc).  Plus, there are some
students who know themselves well enough to study something very specific in
college.  And honestly, “independent studies” just doesn’t work for some
students.  

But think about it.  The rat race to get into a good school starts at what… 13?
 All that posturing, presenting a “well-rounded individual” with
academics, sports, leadership, and civic activities, and anxiety about GPAs
& SATs.  I’m not afraid of hard work, but I am particularly afraid of
misdirected or wasted hard work.  All that energy could go into “independent study”
whereby my teenager can pursue real vocational directions through
apprenticeships, mentorships, and internships.  

Okay, so I
haven’t completely convinced myself that college isn’t worth it.  After
all, some of my best friends in the world are college buddies.  I even
recently started a business with one of them I had lost touch with for 10
years.  But for my kids, it’s becoming clear – college is a one-size-fits-all solution in a world that needs more sizes.  College is no longer a given. 

—

Other Savvy Daddy Articles
Answering Your Teen’s Top 4 Compliants
Getting Your Teen to Actually (like OMG!) Open Up to You

So a couple months ago, I started hearing the stories about the drama that was happening KC’s cousin, “J” and girlfriend.  None of it was anything positive.  Abuse had resulted, the girlfriend refused to leave and Child Protective Services took their then three month old baby.

That’s the background in a nutshell.

One day shortly after hearing the news, and thinking how stupid the mother must be for giving up her kid for a dude that treats her worse than crap, KC came into the room while I was working.  She sat on the bed and you could tell she had something big to ask.  It was hard to find the words, but she came out and said that her cousin asked us if we could take care of D (the baby).

Real quick.  I am not, have not, nor will I ever be a young woman who ended up in a situation where her boyfriend or whatever abused them in whatever capacity.   I understand it could have been based on whatever control KC’s cousin had on her or whatever.  I know it’s hard.  I know that much.  But being a parent, no matter how bad you are scared and you have been offered a safe way out and a safe place to stay but choose to give up your kid.  That is stupid.  I’m sorry it is.  Especially when you have complete awareness of what you are doing,


So KC just dropped the bombshell that we are being asked to take care of her cousin’s baby.

Hell no!! Not even a rated TV-7 “heck no”, but “Hell no”!!

I know she expected this reaction because she wasn’t mad or defensive.

You see in the Summer of 09, we were the safety plan for her cousin, “K” and her two kids.  K was a teenage mother with two kids with a dude that wasn’t a positive influence on her either.  K and J are siblings.   Which is why J asked KC if we could take care of the baby since we have a history of taking care of their family.


Back to the “hell no!”

My reason for the denial was we are finally in a spot where KC is not pregnant and we are not expecting her to be pregnant anytime soon.  With her not being pregnant, it means she is not on bed rest for an indefinite period of time.  The kids are getting pretty self sufficient and they don’t need constant looking after.  I’m finally able to get to those projects around the house that need to be done.  Plus I also want to have more alone time with just KC.

She understood.

PLUS!! I saw this as bailing J out of his situation.  J’s been in and out of trouble, mostly in, for years.  I don’t want his drama being brought into my family.  I told her there are plenty of foster homes that are ready and able to take care of an infant.  I felt we are not in that place.

I listed a ton of more reasons why we shouldn’t.

Why us?

Again, she understood.

I stopped to breath and calm down when KC told me the reason she wanted to consider it.  KC has a giving heart.  She’d give all of herself no matter what the circumstance before thinking about what it could cost her.  I love that about her, but it can also frustrate the cranberry sauce out of me.  She really wanted to keep the baby with the family.  More discussion with me not budging and her being completely understanding.

I told her, “Okay, I will pray about it.  And I promise I won’t pray ‘God can you please change KC’s crazy mind’”.

With that she left and I went back to work.  I forget what I prayed, I was just something like, “God?? Whatever….”

Shortly after that, I started focusing on the solution instead of the problem of bringing a new child into the house.  Sure we have five kids, three share a room, and my dad takes up about 175 square feet of the house and we have a ton of laundry.  But that really shouldn’t be any reason why we couldn’t take care of another kid no matter how long it would be.  In my head I was making it work logistically.

And with that, my mind was changed.

Hey You!! I need constant approval. Can you please click through the link and leave a comment. If you don’t, I will think people don’t like me and I am wasting me time with this.

“My dad never gave me an allowance
because it looked too much like a government hand-out.” – Rand Paul

“How much money do we have, dada?
hundred thousand hundred forty-five?” –Meme, my son, just turned 4

With everything that’s going on with
the economy, this is a great time to get smart about teaching our kids about
money.  Here are some tips that I
gleaned from a great interview with Money and Kids Expert Susan Beacham of Money Savvy Generation.  Her mission in life is to educate our
next generation on how to be smart with money.

1. For younger kids, make money
   concrete.  Money is an abstract
   concept for younger kids, so the more we can make it about something they can
   see and touch, the better.  
   One good way is to use a Money Savvy Pig,
   a 4-chamber piggy bank that gives kids the choice to save, donate, invest, and
   spend.  They can see the coins
   accumulate in there and they start to understand what “savings” actually
   means.  Even if you don’t use the
   Money Savvy Pig, use a piggy bank that’s transparent, so kids can see the coins
   accumulate.  Otherwise, in their minds,
   money that’s dropped in is just going into a black hole.  It’s basically just a toy to them.

2. Read to them a lot.  Here’s a great list of books put
   together by Beacham organized by age. 
   Even for traveling dads, you can read with your kids over the
   phone.  The power of listening to
   your kids when they first learn how to read – this is teaching them the value
   of both reading and financial literacy.

3. Give them an allowance with a
   contract.  Dads, an allowance
   is one of the best ways to teach kids about budgeting and financial
   choices.  Instead of making it
   play-money, make it a transfer of responsibility to managing certain expenses.  Beacham told me about her daughter’s
   allowance contract (here’s a sample
   contract).  With her allowance,
   she was responsible for buying 3 things: lunch for school, toiletries, and
   clothing.  Buy the $25 or the $1.25
   bottle of hair gel?  Get those vintage
   jeans from the retailer or from a resale? 
   Buy lunch at school or make it at home?  Budgeting 101. When they’ve got skin in the game, they become
   more savvy consumers.  And for boys,
   it’s a miracle!  They even take better
   care of the things they buy with “their” money.

4. Don’t break your money
   promises.  Beacham has
   traveled the country talking to kids about money, and she’s amazed at how many
   middle school students know exactly how much their parents “owe” them on
   allowance.  Unfortunately, this
   actions-speak-louder-than-words situation is teaching that money promises are
   okay to break.  So, if you’re late
   on allowance, pay them interest!  I
   know that sounds crazy, but what a lesson to respect the value of money.

5. Help them set some goals.  As they start to
   save, you can start helping them set some goals.  I know my son wants his first set of real Legos.  This starts them thinking about
   longer-term planning and (the horror!) delayed gratification.  You can match certain funds, too, along
   the way.

6. Get their skin in the game,
   too.  Kids don’t
   care if things break if they know we’ll just get them another one.  Or often, they don’t appreciate the
   things they have if it’s just handed to them.  One of Beacham’s daughters had taken a few years of tennis
   lessons (which can get expensive!). 
   One year, Beacham asked her if she still wanted the lessons.  If she did, she’d have to pay for a
   portion of them.  After some
   thought, her daughter decided not to proceed.  Beacham would have never known where her daughter really stood
   with tennis without that conversation.

7. Give them the grocery store
   lesson.  How many
   times do you take your kids to the store?  Make their trip about more than riding in a plastic car-cart
   or finagling some gum from you at the check-out line.  Yup, running errands is about as much
   fun as answering the “does this make me look fat?” question, but these trips
   are great teaching moments.  Introduce
   your kids to the price tags hanging right next to everything in the store. Get
   them to help you find a better deal on the $/ounce.  Explain why we buy certain things in bulk from Costco and
   other things at the grocery store.

8. Take the time to verbalize your
   financial decisions.  The grocery store is just one venue, but our entire life as
   a consumer can be opened up to our kids in an age-appropriate way.  Explain why you’re shopping at Best Buy
   for a plasma television, but double-checking the price online.  Explain why Michigan cherries in Illinois are so cheap in
   July, but why we probably won’t buy the more expensive, less sweet cherries in
   February. Next time you go to Jiffy Lube with your child, explain to them that
   going to there is probably 50% cheaper than the dealer, but comparable in
   quality. These are decisions we are making all the time – take the extra
   minutes to explain it to them as you’re doing it.  They’re soaking it in much more than we think.

9. When tough times hit, talk
   about it.  Don’t go
   silent and think you’re “protecting” them.  When bad times hit, they pick up the change, get anxious,
   and if not addressed, will act out. 
   If you’ve lost a job (mine disappeared a year ago), man up and tell them.
   Tell them that we’re going to have to tighten our belts for a while.  Maybe they’ll ask “will we have
   food?”  “Yes, we’ll have food, but
   we won’t be able to go out to eat as much.  How else do you think we could save some money?”  Lots of kids really just want to know how
   all these adult-sounding changes are impacting their world – what will happen
   to my room, my friends, and my pet? 

 Studies show that basically our
children’s financial mindset is set by the age of 13.  So, it’s just like investing – start early and grow slowly.  A minute here at the grocery store, a
minute there at Best Buy, a minute at home talking about their piggy bank –
slowly but surely these investments in time and attention add up and multiple
on themselves.

What are some of the best things
you’ve done when it comes to money and kids?

–

Other Resources:

Susan Beacham’s Blog

I struggled with this Sunday afternoon.  I was supposed to lead singing, but I didn’t feel like my heart was in the right place.

I just finished a hard conversation that left me hurting.  At that moment I wasn’t blown away by God.  I wasn’t inspired by His grace.  Honestly, I was anxious and fuming.  My heart and mind were flooding with emotions that ranged from doubt and confusion to anger and bitterness.  Did I say the wrong things?  Should I have stopped talking and just let it slide? I replay the entire conversation in my head and evaluate my responses.

Did I feel like going to church?  Nothing in me wanted to go, I just wanted to get away and be by myself.  But I couldn’t think straight so I went outside to engage in some manual labor and sort it all out in my head.

While chopping some firewood, Psalm 73:17 was in my head, “It was too painful for me – Until I went into the sanctuary of God;” I knew God could turn my night around.  I just needed to go to His house instead of chilling at my own.  I’ve heard it said, “When you don’t feel like going to church, that’s probably when you need to be there the most.”  So I called and asked someone to fill in for leading singing and made sure I got to God’s house.

This time, singing the hymns wasn’t out of a heart overflowing with joy, as it’s usually said they should be.  But I sang the words to remind myself of the great truths I needed to be real in my life.  I sang out of a heart that wanted joy.  I sang about God’s wisdom, justice and mercy.  The theme through all the songs seemed to be contrasting His might and His mercy.  Perfect in power, perfect in love.  Only thou art holy…That one stung, since so much of what has been affecting me that afternoon was a whole lot of “holier than thou” from everyone involved, including myself.

My heart was on the mend.  I set up a time to talk to my pastor.  Hopefully, I can get things straightened out eventually.  Some days, I feel like such a mess.  But I’m glad I decided to go to church.

Now on top of tomorrow being a withdrawal Monday, and having to face my boss who is coming back from vacation to deal with all the problems I caused for him, I have this hanging over my head.  Hate to say it on a Sunday night, but I can’t wait for the weekend!

Looking back on the posts I have contributed thus far to this blog,they are all negative. I seem to be doing a lot of complaining; I seem to be an unhappy sort of person. It’s not true really. For the most part, our life in community with James at home is going swimmingly. We are all in our best role and the really important things are good, really good actually. So why is it that I always sound so damn whiney? I blame my job. I promise though, next week I will come up with something really positive, like-sunshine and roses and smiling isn’t-the-world-lovely kind of optimism. You won’t know what hit you. In the mean time, here’s one more dooms-ville post to add to my record. Because I wasn’t quite feeling up for optimism yet. It’s coming though. Soon. Really.

I do a job I do not enjoy. I have bad hours, an uninteresting commute out of the city to the suburbs, tasks that I am not challenged by and metrics I am not achieving. Because of these things, I am constantly wishing time off the clock, willing lunchtime to come sooner and living for the end of the day when I run out the door, peel out of the parking lot and weave in and out of traffic home, to my boys, who I am working for. But this wishing time away of course makes me feel like I am living for the 3 or 4 hours when I am away from my job and these hours end up going by much more quickly than any other in the day. So time is going by, slowly by day and quickly by night. And all of a sudden, in the four months since I started this job, my little boy who was still a toddler is talking in full sentences and his older brother is already shrugging off my snuggling and these lovely, innocent months are slipping through my fingers.

It is difficult to switch gears: to get through the day and linger through the evening, to resent the daylight hours in my cubicle and cherish the bedtime routine, to function through tasks and then engage with full emotional depth. For the most part, I’m not good at the separation. I end up blurring the lines and coming home with a practical agenda and feeling impatient, discontent, frustrated. And because I realize this as it is happening, as I watch one of the boys react to my rigidity or feel James’ retreat from my negativity, I immediately regret my attitude and further resent the job that brings me to this place, the job that steals from the time I have by fostering ennui for most of my waking hours. I’m sure I am not alone in this feeling. In fact I’m sure that even working parents who like their jobs struggle with switching gears from day to night. But the difference must be that I don’t feel like I accomplish much during the day, I don’t spend the time away from my kids for any productive, world changing work, or even work I gain pleasure from or contribute talent towards. I am just making money. Which is important, I know. But sometimes I can’t remember why it’s important enough to be spending this much time away from my boys.

I don’t know what to do. The easy answer is to quit my job, find something else that I enjoy more, that has better hours that is closer to home. For now, there aren’t any good options for those kinds of jobs. And for this time, however long it lasts I need to get better at being content and appreciating what I have, maybe even trying harder to be successful in my job. I’m sure at some not too distant time in the future I will look back on this as a blip of time in between much better times. I just don’t know what to do while I wait. Because I don’t think I can wish time away much longer; I’ll have lost too much of the good stuff.

I like to use antidotes from my life and stories from other dads to illustrate points and life lessons. I generally enjoy writing the Wednesday articles because I can go just about anywhere I want with them and I consider it more creative than the other days. I love doing the interviews and I find the statistical research fascinating  but they both serve to help me focus on the book and as fodder and background for these stories, ramblings, lessons, education and hopefully inspiration. I hope you’ll find today’s post contains all of this.

In less than two weeks now my daughter will be having a surgery called an SDR – or Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy. This is a serious surgery that will have her in the hospital for a week and after it’s completed she will have to work to learn to walk again. I go into details about the surgery over on the MySpellingSucks.com site. This is some serious stuff and was a tough decision to make as a parent.

So how did we go about the process of making this tough decision?

Well in our case the decision process really started seven years ago when Haley was born and we found out she had CP. Once we knew, we decided to make decisions to encourage a positive attitude and aggressive approach to life.  Generally we feel 1) If we can do it, she can do it 2) If you fall get back up  – This is literal in Haley’s case. I was lucky enough to have a good friend growing up who has CP that is now a Lawyer so I knew right away that we would be the only ones who set her limitation and that we would not let the limitations be defined by a disability but rather by what she enjoyed and wanted to accomplish.

Using the above life approach we were extremely aggressive with therapies and we have been pretty aggressive with other treatments. It turns out if we had pushed on this surgery we probably could have done it a few years ago but I think we were comfortable waiting for our team to recommend it.  (Oh Yeah Team = a mix of doctors and therapists from around the country) At any rate as soon as the SDR was recommended we started looking into it.  We got differing opinions on if the surgery would be valuable or if it could even hurt her. One local Nero Surgeon felt that we shouldn’t do the surgery but most of the rest of our team felt she would do best to have the surgery as long as an aggressive therapy plan to optimize the results of the operation was in place both before and after the operation.

So thinking about the process we  did two things 1 research and 2 evaluated the operation on risk vs reward scale that favors risk and reward all based on our life philosophy if we can she can and get back up when you fall.

Related posts:

1. Perspective and Surgery
2. Guest Post – Chris Singer – Council of Dads

I am pleased to present this
interview with bestselling author Brad Meltzer, whom I first met in 2004, to
all my fellow Savvy Daddies out there.  This interview was done just for
you all.  As we approach Father’s Day this new book, Heroes for My Son, is
even more noteworthy.  Author Brad Meltzer wrote this amazing collection
for his sons and thought this was worth sharing with the world and it truly
is!  Brad created a book that shows more than great people.  It shows
the single moment that makes each person great.  While the title may say
Heroes for My Son, this collection is important for boys and girls alike. 
We can never have enough heroes after all. 

Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York
Times bestselling author of The Book of Fate,
as well as the bestsellers The Tenth
Justice, Dead Even,
The First
Counsel, The Millionaires
and The Zero Game.
He is also one of the co-creators of the TV show, Jack & Bobby—and
is the Eisner Award-winning author of the critically acclaimed comic book, Justice League
of America.  Raised in Brooklyn and Miami, Brad is a
graduate of the University of Michigan and Columbia Law School.  Brad
currently lives in Florida with his wife Cori, who’s also an attorney, and
their three children-Jonas, Lila and Theo.  To learn more about Brad and
his works, please visit www.bradmeltzer.com and to learn more about
Heroes for My Son, please visit www.heroesformyson.com.



How long have you worked on this book
and what was the spark that lead you to this collection of heroes?  

It began the night my first son was born.  I was stuck at
a red light, and I remember looking up at the black sky and thinking of this
baby boy we were just blessed with.  That’s when I asked myself the
question for the very first time: What kind of man did I want my son to be?
 I have three children now.  I’ve long ago realized I have little say
in the matter.  But at that moment, I decided that I wanted to write a
book over the course of my son’s life and then when I eventually gave it to
him, he’d realize what a brilliant father I was.  I’d assumed Norman
Rockwell would of course be resurrected to paint the moment, because it would
be that perfect.
 
But the book was just a list of silly platitudes –
until a friend of mine told me this story about the Wright Brothers:
  Every day Orville and Wilbur Wright went out to fly their plane,
they would bring enough materials for multiple crashes.  That way, when
they crashed, they could rebuild the plane and try again. Think about it a
moment: every time they went out-every time-they knew they were
going to fail.  But that’s what they did:  Crash and rebuild.
 Crash and rebuild.  And that’s why they finally took off.
 
I loved
that story.  I still love that story. And that’s the kind of
story I wanted my son to hear:  a story that wouldn’t lecture to him, but
would show him that if he was determined…if he wasn’t afraid to fail…if he had
persistence (and a side order of stubbornness), the impossible becomes
possible.
 
Since that time, I’ve been collecting heroes for this book,
which has been one of the most rewarding projects of my life.

 


When you were thinking who to
include, what was your process like?  Did you know most of the people you
wanted to feature off the top of your head?

  Some I
always knew, like Jim Henson, Rosa Parks, or George Washington.
 Sometimes, I just liked someone, like Charlie Chaplin or Lucille Ball –
and their stories would be even more inspiring than I ever thought.  And
sometimes, we’d find out what a jerk someone was.  But the goal of the
book was always the same:  This wasn’t about fame.  It’s about what
we are all capable of on our very best days.
 


Since this is your first non-fiction
work, did you have to go about the research differently than you do for the
fiction books?

  In my thrillers, I can make up
whatever I want.  Here, these were the stories of Gandhi and Rosa Parks
and Eleanor Roosevelt.  I needed to get it right.  I felt like the
guy who carries the Olympic torch for one block.  It’s not mine.  But
for this one block, I’m the caretaker.  That mattered to me.
 


I understand the simple sentence
“Batman and Robin were in the Batmobile.” plays a key part in your life and this
collection.  How so?

  The very first hero in the
book was my grandfather, Ben Rubin. When I was little, my grandfather knew I
loved hearing Batman stories, so he’d always tell me this one story that went
like this: “Batman and Robin were in the Batmobile.  And they were riding
along the edge of a curving cliff.  And up ahead of them was a white van,
which held the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, and Catwoman.  And as they
drove along this cliff, Batman and Robin caught them.”
 
That’s
when I’d look him right in the eyes and whisper, “Tell it again.”
 
He’d
smile at me and say, “Batman and Robin were in the Batmobile…  It was the
same story every time.  Just four sentences long.  Batman and
Robin were in the Batmobile…  But he told me this story over and over
simply because he knew I loved hearing it.  That’s a hero to me. In that
action, he taught me about love and compassion and dedication.  He taught
me the power of creativity.  He opened the first window of my imagination.
 And most of all, as I looked back on it, he showed me the true impact of
a well-told story.  That’s what I wanted for my son.
 


Did having so many great women in
your life, shape who you consider heroes?

  You know
me too well.  I love strong women.  I was raised by strong women.
 So how could that not effect me.
 


I know your Mom passed away last year
and it has been difficult.  What would she think about being one of the
heroes in your book?  Would she like it or would she tell you not to
include her?
  
She’d say I was being
ridiculous.  But she also knew when to be a proud Mom.

Although this is your first
non-fiction book, it is not the first time heroes have been prominent in your
work, correct?  

In every thriller I do, I’m writing
about my belief that ordinary people are the ones who change the world.
 And it’s the same with the work I do in comic books.  Heroes are
everywhere.
 


Tell us a little bit about the
charity, Ordinary People Change The World, you started and the work the
foundation has done to date?
  I think the best
way to answer this is sometimes to simply show it.  Go here and see the power of
ordinary people:  

Why is this book important for both
boys and girls alike?

  We all need heroes.  And
heroes, to me, aren’t different for boys and girls.  I’d give every single
hero in this book to my daughter.  To do otherwise would be just foolish.
 


You consider this book less a history
lesson and more a dynamic guide to living, correct?  Why?

  I just think we need to be reminded that anything’s possible.
 Often, we get that message from movies.  But forget movies.
 That message is here — in real life.  I want my kids to know that.
 And I want people to say to whoever it was in their life, “Thank you
for being my hero.”
 


Your last fiction book, Book of Lies,
involves Superman, the original superhero.  In Heroes for My Son, the
creators of Superman are also featured?  What has Superman meant to you?
 Do your children share the same love of superheroes?

They don’t.  But they do know I believe in his morality.
 It’s still a potent message.
 


Which is your favorite
Superman-George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh, or Tom Wellig?

  Christopher Reeve.  No question.
 


Do you have a favorite Batman-Adam
West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, or Christian Bale?  

Bale, but without the throaty voice.
 


I imagine your daughter, Lila, will
be expecting a book as well?
 
Expecting?  Every day she comes
into my office and says, “Are you done with my book yet?”  She
knows I’m working on it.
 


What is your most important hope for
your children? 
Besides health, that they accept
themselves for who they are.
 


I know you really enjoy interacting
with your readers.  Would you like to hear about your reader’s heroes? 

Yes!  If you go to www.HeroesForMySon.com,
we’ve asked people to submit their own.
 


With blogging and the internet so
many people are becoming writers.  Any advice for aspiring writers?

  Never let anyone tell you “no.”
 


Any final words of advice for the
thousands of Dads of all walks of life who are fellow Savvy Daddies that will
read this?  

I just hope they enjoy sharing with
their kids as much as I’ve enjoyed building this for my own.


Gary Parkes, the interviewer, is a fellow Savvy Daddy who
moderates the Savvy Daddy Tweens Group on Facebook.  He lives in the
Atlanta suburbs with his wife Stacie and his two daughters, Abigail and
Delilah.  By day, Gary works as a mortgage loan officer and helps run the
PTA at his children’s school.  Gary currently serves as a Vice President
of the Carmel Elementary School PTA in Woodstock, GA and will be the
Co-President starting in June.  In what is typically a Mom-dominated area,
Gary is proud to show that us Dads can handle it too!  More than ever,
Dads are taking part in their children’s schools and lives and Gary is glad to
be a part of that trend, albeit a small one.  Feel free to look up Gary on
Facebook
or LinkedIn-he
would be glad to hear from you!