HARRY H. HARRISON JR.

A six-year old’s thoughts on Father to Son.

Sat, 11 May 2013 15:47:07 -0500

FATHER TO SON, LIFE LESSONS ON RAISING A BOY has been reprinted 36 or 37 times, sold about 1.5 million copies and has now - along with Father to Daughter, Mother to Son and Mother to Daughter been updated, redesigned and republished by Workman Publishing. You can buy the new version here.

Father to Son and Father to Daughter are some the best books dads can read about raising kids exactly because dad will read them. They’re short books with short sentences: some funny, some insightful, some pensive and some just this side of sane but a man would understand. But they’re short. A man can take them to the bathroom for a few hours, though many keep them on the bedside table or read them as devotionals.

Father to Son was written in 1998 and while much of its advice remains classic and proven, fifteen years have brought new issues parents must face including the internet, smart phones and in my opinion a dumbing down of mothers and fathers. (Case in point: MTV’s inane Teen Mom which seemingly encourages homeless, stupid, poor, 15 year old 3rd-grade readers that life only begins to ROCK when you have a baby and no father. So far, its biggest star is pinning her future hopes on a porn career,but that is another matter entirely,)

Hence, the revisions dealing with smart phones, texting, internet porn, skate boards and so on. Well the only published writer I know that never had to deal with editors was Moses. He would write about sticks turning into snakes,
water coming out of a rock, seas parting, mana from Heaven and there was never an editor to go, “Say Moses, the imagery of the frogs, our focus group doesn’t like it.” The point being, even on a “minor” rewrite of Father to Son (and all the other books) required “compromises” with a know-it-all, unyielding . . . excuse me, with a wonderful person and Child of God. We had a few “minor differences of opinion” but that’s only to be expected when you are republishing a series that has sold millions of copies and everybody wants to get every word perfect. And the finished versions are even cooler than the original versions: a little larger, up-up-to-date and fabulous reads or gifts for moms and dads. I couldn’t be more proud.

So last week I open my mail only to find a six-year old has edited the last page of my Father to Son book. Jules Sullivan, who loves for his did to read him the book simply did not like the ending. So as any man would do in his situation, he took matters into his own hands and he changed it. Curiously, while I generally fight with my editors like cats and dogs, this addition brought tears to my eyes, It’s obvious Jules loves his father, Paul, who is just as obviously, doing a wonderful job of being a father.

But here’s my one request of Paul. Discourage Jules from entering the book editing field. A six year old book editor is cute and warm and snuggly and loved by authors. A twenty-six year old book editor is a lonely, neurotic . . . no, no, I mean is a wonderful person and child of God as well.

Thoughts on being G-Daddy

Mon, 6 May 2013 10:52:22 -0500

First things first. This picture is not me. This picture is the way I think of me . . . Point being, I am way, way, way, way too young to be a grandfather. I am certainly in the 60 is the new 40’s category, but regardless, I wear Italian clothing, work out relentlessly, actually introduced my sons and nieces to Mumford and Sons. I’m not talking about young at heart, I’m talking young. I throw away AARP invitations because they obviously have retrieved my name from a Russian database. I demand people NOT call me “Sir.” I’m told women faint when they see me in a swimsuit. I know my wife seems to fall asleep at the sight.

Regardless my son and his wife announced they were pregnant. I knew this was a possible outcome of their marriage ceremony, but I thought they would have the courtesy to wait seven or eight years like we did. Saying I have a daughter in law was freaky enough. “My son is pregnant,” doesn’t sound right. So the feeling occurs to me that I’m less ready to be a grandfather than I was to be a father. It’s like being less ready to be 60 than you were 30 even though you thought turning 30 was totally frightening.

I’m at that juicy point in life where I’m not ready to be called “senior” or “experienced” or God forbid, “old”, but it does seem 8-year old girls now sail past me on the jogging trail. Plus my shoulders have become useless. They only serve to hold up my shirts. And I’ve bumped into these weird conditions like plantar fasciitis, torn biceps, not to mention this minor cardiac event that put me in the ICU for four days leaving me with a spiffy new stent in what’s commonly known as the widow-maker artery.

Never the less, I can’t get my mind around being old enough to watch my children have children. And let me add right here there will never be a Paw Paw, Gramps, Grand Daddy or Pops in this house. My name is G-Daddy or if I have to relent, G-Pops. I’m told by those men with grandchildren that the kids actually name their grandparent, which sounds way too much like liberal claptrap to me. If my grandson ever wants milk and cookies, to play baseball or come out of the locked cabinet, he will call me G-Daddy.

Now that that’s resolved, let me talk about the wonder of a parent seeing the results of their parenting. In some cases of course, that wonder is nothing short of a Shakespearean tragedy. I know parents who chose to do other things besides preparing their kids for adulthood, and now they and their kids having to deal with single motherhood, half-way houses, lawyers’ fees, peeing in cups and hundreds of dollars missing from dad’s house.The terrible thing is, I saw this happening twenty years ago, when their kids were six and four. Scientists know the first three or four years can dictate the rest of a child’s life. So do parents in their sixty’s. Because we’re the ones to blame when our adult children aren’t ready to grow up. http://bit.ly/ZBiTH1.

In our case, watching my formerly wild college student have a bible on his bedside table, go to church twice a week, study and listen to religious shows has literally brought me to my knees in gratitude. To say that I am blessed to live to see both of my sons grow into outstanding young, successful, honorable men is an understatement. I know “To whom is given much, much will be required,” but the opposite is implied. “To whom who gives much, much is given.” We invited God into our lives early in our marriage and have seen more miracles than could be believed. Now, I’ve been given the blessing of watching our children raised as God’s children become adults, and one of them about to become a parent.

For years, it’s been my mission to guide and inspire adults to be better parents www.fearlessparenting.com. I’ve stressed that the point of childhood is training for adulthood. Not that it shouldn’t have it’s charms and mysteries and wonders because children will make that happen magically and inevitably; but that parents need to realize childhood is too important to waste. The preschool years are so important that many scientists (and writers like myself) believe they shape the rest of your life. You slog and grind through the teenage years only to be handed an estimate of college expenses that rivals many nations entire GNP. Sometimes you wonder what’s the point of dragging them to church or a synagogue. Sometimes you’re ready to cave in on an outfit too skimpy or jeans for a 15-year old that are more expensive than your suit from Neiman’s.

But then you watch your child transition to adulthood. They still don’t know things, like to call the plumber when your toilet overflows, not the fire department, but they begin succeeding and failing and starting over and succeeding again. You watch in pride as the lessons you wondered would ever sink through begin to be exhibited. They start showing up in church. They start making moral choices. They start shaping their lives around what they want of course, but with your voice in the background. My oldest son is in private equity, never married and would walk on his knees through nails for his family and friends. He’s that loyal. He doesn’t tell me but I know he prays. My youngest son is a successful dentist who married a divine, angelic woman and they’re about to have a son.

So, here’s what I’ve learned: parenthood is all about watching the children you raised become grownup. Watching them shape their morals and values and faith and persistence they learned from you.

Grandfatherhood will be totally different. It will be watching the child I raised act like the father he was taught to be. By me.

I only hope I covered everything.

Visit my website, www.fearlessparenting.com

Is it time to bring back college curfews?

Thu, 7 Mar 2013 10:35:45 -0600

I bring up this question in all seriousness on Drlaura.com you can read on the front page here http://bit.ly/WJt9vE.
So does this question launch me into being like my own father?

Lord let’s hope not. But let’s talk about a world without any rules or boundaries.

Nobody, but nobody enjoyed pushing the boundaries in college more than me. I knew where they were. I knew when I stepped over them. I expected bad things to happen but often got away unscathed thanks to a forgiving God.

But now then, we are launching millions of students three months out of high school into a world without any boundaries. And the results - over the last fifty years - have been disastrous. As I say in my article, “ Since 1970, the rate of freshmen graduating from college has plummeted. Every study shows that there are more freshmen entering college than ever before, yet fewer of them are actually graduating than ever before. The percentage of students receiving their degree has dropped from 46.7 percent in 1970 to 36.4 percent in the early 1990s and continues a downward trend starting 50 years ago. More students were graduating in four years in 1965 than they are today, more are dropping out, and more are literally lost in the system so the government has no idea what's happening to them.”

The other thing I point out is that the hardest, most difficult college in the United States has the highest rate of graduation, and an 11.30 pm curfew. I’m talking about West Point. It could be argued they only take exceptional young applicants and while that’s true, exceptional young students at other schools are partying all night, failing to get to class, not turning in their homework, not preparing for semester exams, starting term papers the night before they are due . . . all the result of having nowhere to be at midnight. The school says you can be anywhere. Only the most motivated, the most disciplined, the most ADULT-THINKING students realize the consequences of staying out late all night, every night. The other students? Well almost one third of them won’t make it back their sophomore year, and only one-half of them will graduate within six years.

But seriously, a college curfew? Today, when they all but died out fifty years ago. Well, here’s where I want to speak directly to moms and dads. Ready? Ok, you’re paying up to and more than $50,000 a year to send your progeny off to college. You have spent thousands on tutoring, you have spent thousands of SAT preparation, you may have spent thousands on private schools. You have spent all this money, yet you are willing to risk another $50,000 to $100,000 on your student whose butt you were busy saving four months ago by hectoring her English teacher into forgiving her scoring a 55 on her finals, you’re ready to invest a small fortune and not have rule 1 - get back to your dorm at night and study?

Maybe you are. But if I were sending kids to college again, I would turn heaven and earth to get them into West Point.

Half of today’s freshmen won’t graduate in six years.

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:41:09 -0600

I talk about this fact all the time. I talk about it in my book
1001 Things Every College Student Should Know (Like buying your books before exams start.) I talk about it in my presentations to College Week Live you can watch here.
I’ve talked about it on NPR, in front of teacher groups, and my new ebook you download here.

So now the New York Times is out with an article that “Holy gee, after six years, 50% of every freshman class either fails out, drops out, transfers out or just disappears - down to Wall Street holding a sign.” Well that’s not their title of course, but you read their “shocked” findings here.

And as the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center points out, less that 3% of the students who started out in a community college ever went on to capture their four year degree.

So what’s going on?

Last week I documented out how the poorest families in China work for $12 a day to insure their children are college ready.That the children view their job as studying, making good grades and graduating from college. Consequently, the Chinese are graduating more students from universities than we are. And don’t believe for a second these graduates aren’t more prepared than their peers in American universities. Young adults are pouring out of China’s universities ready to tackle engineering, medical, computer and economic fields. The same courses that American students avoid like the plague because our students know these courses involve intense studying.

Here’s what’s wrong with our college freshmen:
1. They are not ready for college level courses. We’ve dumbed down high school so much that we’re graduating dumb kids. Many freshmen have to take remedial English just so they can actually do their homework in the future.
2. They take the senior year off. Let me be specific here. Most Asian kids spend their senior year taking college level courses. Most White, Black and Hispanic kids try to do as little as possible. Then they are magically supposed to switch gears and change when they hit college.
3. They’re not mentally prepared for the workload, the demands and the intensity of college life. They’re prepared to party, but to read sixty pages of literature, then to reread it, then to reread it again? Before starting the homework for Biology 1? Forget it.
4. They have no plans but to live the life they see on MTV. And who wouldn’t. If it weren’t a fairytale.
5. Mom is not in college with them. Mom runs interference for her kids from PreK to graduation. Mom chews out teachers, fights her sons battles, does her daughter’s science fair projects. Mom makes the honor role. Her kids make excuses.
6. They have never had responsibility. Every child should have a job when they are 12-years old. Many of today’s freshmen have never had a job. Just an allowance.
7. They are disorganized. It’s hard to turn in your homework when you can’t find it. Or know what to study when you’ve lost your syllabus.
8. They have no ability to prioritize. Should you study for your exam right now, or go drink for three hours then com back and study. Seriously, this is a question racing through thousands of college students’ minds today.
9. They are not disciplined. Studying six hours a night, every night isn’t fun, but it’s the only way to gt your degree.
10. They are not grown up. We’re a nation intent on raising happy kids, not grown up kids. And it all comes crashing down when they have to think like an adult.

Harry H Harrison Jr. is a NYTIMES best selling parenting author with over 3.5 million books in print. He has been interviewed on over 25 television programs, and featured in over 75 local and national radio stations including NPR. His books are available in over thirty-five countries throughout Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Norway, South America, China, Saudi Arabia and in the Far East. For more information visit www.fearlessparenting.com.

“Only Knowledge Changes Your Fate.”

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:36:07 -0600

That extraordinary piece of wisdom comes not from me but from a Chinese woman, Cao Weiping, who according to the New York Times,http://nyti.ms/XglasR the apple orchids in Hanjing China tying little plastic sacks on 3000 young apples, one a time, for the grand total of $12 a day. Her husband, Wu Yiebing, labors in the choking dust of the claustrophobic coal tunnels for $500 a month. They both have one goal in mind: paying for their daughter’s college education.

This singular, incredible focus on education by the poorest in China is in direct conflict with the haphazard, who-cares, “I’ll read a book when it damn well suits me” attitude of America’s poor and unfortunately, more and more of its middle class.

The fact is, adult children of the poor become poorer and adult children of the richer become richer because of the focus on education in the house. Some people blame this on income stratifiction and inequality. The poor can’t afford books ($200 Michael Jordans, but not books), the poor have no mentors (aside from the ones they jeer at in school) the poor don’t learn to read before the start of school (though they know how to score 100,000 kills on Call of Duty) and the poor have parents who never meet with the teacher (unless it’s to chew her out for failing her kid.) Actually this is not a new story. What’s new is that my wife, the head librarian for a private school is seeing this kind of behavior in the upper crust of society. These kids can’t read either, they haven’t developed critical thinking skills, they can’t independently solve problems, parents only get involved to play bash the teacher and kids are led to believe they are so special, no setback will ever confront them.

So while the poorest of the poor in China are pouring their hearts and souls into their children’s education to ensure they get a college degree, in the United States we have young people going to college unprepared to do freshman level math. At some of the most respected schools in the nation. it’s like we have three levels of society in school today. The top are like the Chinese, everything they do is school focused, they read, they get ahead on their homework, they take college level courses, they are in a struggle for class ranking a scholarships. Level two are the kids who don’t have the skill set or the drive to compete on the highest level. But they have the background, the education, the college focused family, and the competitive level to turn it up once they are in college. Then we have the level three kids, whose parents - rich or poor - don’t have the time, inclination or focus to get their kids to think about life after high school.

Not only are the Chinese spanking our butts, but so our fifteen other nations including Japan, Canada and South Korea. And this isn’t just a family issue. We live in a global economy where the best and the brightest (and the best and the brightest nations!) will dominate. If our kids aren’t prepared to do college level work by the time they reach their freshman year, what will our society do when China and Japan really and truly buy up all our debt, real estate and corporations?

For us to remain a world power, we have to instill this simple Chinese truth into all our kids. “Only knowledge changes your fate.”

Harry H Harrison Jr. is a NYTIMES best selling parenting author with over 3.5 million books in print. He has been interviewed on over 25 television programs, and featured in over 75 local and national radio stations including NPR. His books are available in over thirty-five countries throughout Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Norway, South America, China, Saudi Arabia and in the Far East. For more information visit www.fearlessparenting.com.